


Bladewalking

by Cara_Loup



Category: Blade Runner (1982), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 14:49:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1270486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cara_Loup/pseuds/Cara_Loup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desperate after the rebellion's failure on Orion, Han Solo takes on a job as blade runner and finds himself entangled in the complex schemes of Tyrell Corporation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bladewalking

  
_I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched ceebeams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain._  
(Roy Batty in _Blade Runner_ )

_It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. There is no salvation._  
(Philip K. Dick: _Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?_ )

****  


* * *

**One**  


"My mother?"

"Yeah," the lazy, bureaucratic voice repeated. "What do you remember about your mother?"

"I can tell you about my mother..."

Once again, the man who called himself Leon rose from his chair and pulled the gun to fire three times without any noticeable change of expression.

Han Solo shifted in his chair. The next scene on the groundwork reel was quite different. Instead of arctic neon, a burning artificial sunset invaded the room and set off thin ribbons of smoke as they curled up from the woman’s cigarette. She gave Rick Deckard a hard time with her porcelain face, her liquid dark eyes and perfectly considered answers. It took the Blade Runner 107 questions, instead of the usual thirty, to put the cross on Rachael, _enfant sauvage_ in the constantly evolving menagerie of replicants. And by the end of the interview, she had Deckard squirming on the hook he’d swallowed along with his victory.

An enlarged freeze-frame filled the monitor, indicting the pivot around which all the events had turned. The woman’s face like bone china, and Rick Deckard’s profile blurring in the background. For all Han could tell, the man looked tired and a little numb.

And now they expected _him_ to wear the misfit’s boots. When Han switched off the replayer, he could hear the silence come off the walls.

_What a sordid little place this is,_ he thought. Trapped under toxic clouds that wouldn’t scatter for another decade or two, the city was either hysterically crowded or downright desolate, one part screaming with life while the other fell into graceless ruin. Then again, he’d seen worse, and he’d spent the entire trip reminding himself that he really didn’t have much of a choice. He’d better start thinking of himself in the terms he applied to Deckard: a bounty hunter contracted to eliminate – _retire_ was the official euphemism – runaway replicants.

_Crazy,_ Han thought. Where he came from, they’d preferred to work with robots instead of organic androids. Though some models were designed to roughly resemble human constitution, the difference was just as marked and visible at first sight. Robots had bodies and faces of metal, reassuring their owners that they were in essence machines who could never violate their programming. They’d short-circuit before they disobeyed their human creators. That made a lot of sense, and he’d never fathomed why big corporations like Tyrell went from constructing robots to breeding replicants, except to boost their profit margin, of course. 

From the start, all replicant types had been fitted with more than perfect organic bodies. They possessed specifically designed minds that copied the human intellect right up to the point of independent thought, the only remaining difference being their four-year lifespan, and their marked lack of empathy. In that respect, Han acknowledged with sardonic amusement, they might as well count him among the fakes.

Still, the invention of replicants had been a madness to begin with. There was no safety relay installed in their minds, nothing that prevented them from developing delusions of grandeur ― or from running amok when they discovered the inflexible limits to their desires. Because they’d been given the ability to dream.

_Stupid,_ Han repeated to himself. _The very quality in humans that eventually immersed Earth in radioactive dust and makes each individual life around the planet miserable day in and out, and they had to implant_ that _in replicant brains_. Maybe it reflected some ultimate suicidal impulse in the human race. And maybe Tyrell Corporation would start selling goodwill buttons next. R EPLICANTS ARE PEOPLE TOO.

A door opened at his back. "You done?" a husky voice asked.

Han brought his chair around slowly. There was something uncanny about Gaff, something he’d tried to get a lock on ever since the lieutenant had picked him up at the lunar transfer port. "Guess I’ve seen all there is to see on this reel," he said. "You wanna take me to your boss now?"

"He waits," Gaff said shortly and turned on his heel.

Like a homing signal, Gaff’s silver-handled walking stick clicked rhythmically on the warped linoleum as they crossed an empty hall. He paused at a narrow swingdoor, stepping aside with courteous indifference to let Han pass into a half-lit office. One thing could be said for Gaff, he sure wasn’t into small-talk.

Behind the desk, a fat man sat smoking while he pondered the dereliction of files before him. A fan rotated with useless sluggishness on the other side of the room.

"Deckard?" the fat man asked uncertainly, squinting through the smoke that curled thickly from his cigar.

"Han Solo." Han stepped into the perimeter of a tired desk lamp and decided not to offer his hand, Terran customs be damned. "You’re Bryant?"

"That’s right, pal," the Department’s chief confirmed as if naming some kind of sordid fate. His glance slid past Han’s shoulder toward the approximate spot where Gaff hung back. Watching, waiting, as usual. "I can see why you selected him."

"The resemblance is fleeting," said Gaff’s voice from the half-shadow, sounding a note of private amusement.

_Great, so I look like the other guy too,_ Han thought. _What’d he do, to leave this amount of human carnage?_

"You’ve worked with replicants before?" Bryant asked, evidently recovered enough to strike a challenging pose. It wasn’t beyond the guy to puff some of that gluey smoke into his face, Han supposed. 

"Yeah, in the Centenary Colonies off Orion," he answered. " _Worked_ with ‘em a few times. I’ve never hunted them before."

"At least they won’t spook you." The fat man gave his cigar a long, pensive look. "We heard about the Orion revolt. That’s what it’s called these days." He snapped off a sharp glance. "If that’s why you’re here, you’d better tell us."

Han produced the hard-boiled, cynical kind of look that blocked the most common types of curiosity. "I’m here for the money. And because I’ve heard all kinds of stories about Terra."

"I don’t think you’ve ever heard a story quite like this." Bryant’s cigar had gone out, and he set it down carefully on the edge of his desk, dribbling ashes over dog-eared papers. "Leon. Pris. Roy Batty. Rachael," he recited the names like broken verses from a litany of self-castigation. "They took it further than depriving the Department of its very best bounty hunters. One of them, Roy Batty, killed Tyrell and his chief designer, one J. F. Sebastian. Squeezed the eyes out of Tyrell’s head." Bryant paused for emphasis, dragging space for some show of revulsion.

Han grimaced. The Centenary riots hadn’t exactly been a picnic either. "I hadn’t heard about Tyrell," he said. "Must be a blow to the corporation."

"There’s a replacement," Gaff supplied.

Well, there always was. Han shrugged. "Deckard... retired all of them," he said, still tripping over the word, "except for Rachael. And if you don’t want me to go after _her_ , what’s my job? Go out and laser who? Looks like you don’t have a single replicant running wild."

Incongruously, Gaff laughed, a raspy, coughing sound.

Bryant ignored him. "Perhaps we do, we’re not sure yet," he said, developing a plaintive look that left the lower half of his face unmoved.

_Here it comes now,_ Han thought. He’d been bracing for the catch all along.

"No fugitives from the Colonies this time. Replicants bred and trained on Earth. Types evolved past the Nexus-6. They’re going to take over, Solo." Bryant leaned back. "It may not look like that to you, but this is the last enclave of humanism. We’re defending the rights of natural-borns on Earth. See, we can’t really trust our rating equipment any longer, not with the Nexus-6 and above on the loose."

"And who’s turning them loose?" Han interrupted him. "Tyrell?"

"Perhaps," Bryant said heavily. "Sooner or later, we won’t be able to trust _each other_ anymore."

"So that’s why you advertised the job in the Colonies." It made a certain kind of sense, but Han’s scalp still prickled uncomfortably.

"As an off-worlder, you’re impartial. We’ve got to use a more subtle approach this time. Investigate. Help us eradicate this cancer infesting the human race."

Pathos didn’t suit Bryant any more than the bullyrag pose did. "All right." Han stepped from the circle of exhausted lamp-light. "I’ll take a look around. Better be prepared to raise the bounty money, if they’re such a hard catch."

"Solo," the fat man called him back, a wistful expression on his face. "Would you cut your hair?"

"Is that a job requirement?"

Gaff chortled again.

"Not on your life," Han said.

* * *

Once the plummeting lift had spat him out onto the street, Han obliged old habits and took a walk down the block to develop a feel for the place. Nothing but gutter steams moved in the back alley, but on the first corner, a crazy rush of life took over. Pedestrian crowds hurried along the rain-slickened streets, and the higher traffic lanes were busy with hovercars and spinners. Every other minute, a propaganda barge paddled past, spilling its _‘Start A New Life In the Off-world Colonies’_ song-and-dance into the murk of the street level. White glares fingered the dirt-streaked facades and succumbed before the garish colors of giant commercial screens.

Han resisted an automatic impulse to crane his neck for the sky. Even the topmost traffic lanes ran beneath a thick cloudscape hanging low over the city vapors. No sky, no stars, and at the best of times, the sun would burn a thin white patch through the clouds. If the reports were right, school kids got time off on those days, so they could ascend to some sky-scraping viewpoint and bathe their faces in the questionable light.

Han merged with the crowd, pacing himself to their nowhere-bound drifts until one of the countless shop windows brought him up short. The neon-lit showcase was full of hair. Natural hair implants and party wigs in every shade of the rainbow, displayed in stacks and dangling from nylon threads like trophies bearing witness to another colonial war. The sight sickened him abruptly. So much for getting a feel of the place.

_Why so touchy?_ Han mocked himself. _This is freedom. This is the chance you wanted_.

Only a week ago, he’d been down and out on Tanneus Three, hitting the deep bottom of misery at full speed. Now, at least he had a solid fighting chance to claw his way back to some reasonable level of existence. And if he played it right, he’d have the money in a month. His contract obligated the Department to pay for the return ticket, which meant he could save his entire cut to get their old freighter out of the impound and pay the bail for his partner. They’d really put the screws on him back there, and it was either sell his soul for the highest bid or lose everything.

Han turned off at the next corner and picked his way back to the Department-owned hovercar awaiting him in the vehicle park.

The rain set in again when he brought the craft up to medium altitude and ran in fine threads over the slanted windscreen. The navigation system crooned a weather report in the digital timbre of seduction. _Fallout will taper off by seven p.m. Please consider your health and stay out of the rain_.

Like he had a real choice? One mile west of the city center, Han made up his mind that he’d start by taking a look around Deckard’s apartment. Maybe that would help him get into this bounty hunter act, too.

Instead of using the subterranean accessway, Han set the hovercar down on the flat roof of the Conapt building. Some fifty meters away, an electric sheep was grazing beneath a smudged canopy. Its fleece looked shaggy enough for the real thing, but live animals were so rare on Earth, it had to be a replica. In the diffuse, brownish light of afternoon, Han watched the sheep until the woolly head lifted and yellow eyes appraised him with a ruminating look. Han pulled up the collar of his short jacket and took himself to the lift cage.

The bright orange seal splodged across the doorframe and part of the door to Deckard’s apt read POLICE AGENCY NO ENTRY ON THREAT OF PENALTY. With a shrug, Han pried it off. If the Blade Runner had scared up evidence that warranted Bryant’s paranoia about an imminent replicant takeover, it would have been located, bagged, and cataloged a long time ago.

Inside, air conditioning hummed in irregular surges. The lighting panels wavered, then steadied into a pale glow that silhouetted the clutter and debris of a solitary life. Han pushed both hands into his pockets and looked around.

Deckard had played the piano and collected old photographs, preferably black and white. Female faces, their half-smiles frozen uncertainly for some slow dinosaur of a camera. And he’d kept those faces clustered around the music sheet, as if they’d add resonance to a favorite tune. Whatever it was, something had been working around and around in this man’s mind before his eventual disappearance.

Han ran his fingers across the steel-grey cover which had slid off the couch. On the table next to it sat two used glasses, the remainder of some amber liquid having dried to a yellow crust at the bottom.

A soft noise from somewhere behind him froze Han the moment he’d straightened out. Metallic clicks against faux-marble flooring announced Gaff. He might have guessed.

"Care to tell me what went down here?" Han asked without turning.

"He fell in love with a replicant." Gaff made it sound like the perfect obscenity. "But that could never happen to you, could it?"

Han snorted. "So he ran off with her. Why aren’t you chasing them?"

"Legal impediments," Gaff said, stepping out of the shadow by the door. "Technically, Rachael is the property of Tyrell Corporation, and the management hasn’t reported a theft. As for Deckard... let’s say Bryant owed him a favor. He’s a free man." Each word was skewered by the taps of Gaff’s stick as he moved around, tap-tapping out the slow, accurate rhythm of a metronome. "Too bad. Bryant was... fond of him."

"Yeah, I’d noticed."

_Maybe more than fond,_ Han speculated, _if he wants to turn me into a Deckard clone right up to the hairstyle_. Then again, Bryant would be a fool to indulge desires for another man. Homosexuality was counted among the major offenses on Earth.

The long trip to the Sol system had given Han more than enough time to read up on Terran laws and customs, and he’d come away with the impression that people lived under a plague of meticulous regulations that predicted everything from breathing rates and appropriate moods down to the choice of bed-partners. The legal canon took its basic tenets from Mercerism, the most fashionable post-war religion. But apparently, Deckard and Rachael had slipped through an undiscovered jurisdictional loophole.

His stick set aside, Gaff had positioned himself beside the piano and folded something out of a white paper slip. "Deckard dreamed of unicorns," he remarked.

It didn’t mean anything to Han. _Unicorn_. He’d have to look that up later. For the time being, he shrugged and watched Gaff’s supple fingers tuck and pleat the paper into a vaguely zoomorphic shape.

"What’s that?" Han asked eventually.

Gaff placed it carefully between the photographs. "A crane, out of one thousand. And the art is called _origami_." An ironic smile crossed the scarred face, but when Han caught the quiet despair in Gaff’s discolored eye, he wondered if the man had gone just the slightest bit crazy.

"The new director at Tyrell Headquarters will see you tomorrow," Gaff told him. "Nine thirty. Don’t be late."

 

**Two**

The moment he’d dropped down on the bed in his own apt, Han fell into a drunken sleep that lasted all through the night until the alarm shrilled him awake. Six thirty. He still had over two hours to get ready for his audience with the most hopeful contender for the position of God.

After a quick shower, Han inspected his gear. The sleek laser tube, lighter than the guns they used in the Orion belt. The briefcase with its rating equipment. To protect his reproductive abilities, he’d been supplied with a leaden codpiece. Han didn’t have any plans for children and worried a whole lot more about the workings of the fallout on his brain. Rain and dustfall deranged minds and genetic properties alike, and everyone stupid enough to hang out on Terra too long eventually deteriorated. But in all likelihood, refusing the codpiece constituted another violation of Mercerism. Earth residents blessed with unimpaired procreative capacity were supposed to devote their lives to the task, just like the surviving specimens of the once prolific animal kingdom. Abortion was threatened with a life sentence, Han recalled. He tossed the codpiece aside with a sharp smack.

For the next half hour, he busied himself with a thorough check of the rating equipment. The Voigt-Kampff test, so the Department’s spec sheet read, had been designed to pick up all the subtle physiological changes that evidenced an emotional response. Pulse, dilation of pupils and capillaries, fluctuations within the eye muscle, skin temperature, perspiration. Replicants weren’t without emotions, but their gut reactions obeyed a logic unconnected to the human code of morals.

Han shook his head at the gleaming instruments as he disassembled the apparatus. He could have told Bryant that he’d know the difference between replicants and natural-borns by mere instinct, but like as not, the Chief would have taken offense. Just as well, they paid him for each employment of the snazzy gadgetry, and Han planned to use it at every opportunity.

His digital wristwatch said nine twenty-five when he parked the hovercar on a shielded platform atop the sprawling ziggurat known as Tyrell Headquarters. If the architects had hoped to impress visitors through sheer size, they’d sure hit the mark.

Ushered inside by a thin woman in a champagne-colored suit, Han stepped into an enormous hall that screamed money from its exquisite interior design to the softly scented air. No matter how he resented the reaction, Han felt scruffy and bedraggled despite the shower, like his mere presence was an insult to all the glass-and-marble splendor. Tinted windows lent a golden hue to the pale morning light and together with camouflaged luminators augmented the feeble glow to a scintillating dawn.

"Mr. Tyrell will be here in a moment," the secretary promised with a perfunctory smile and departed, her high heels clip-clopping on the marble.

"Thanks," Han sent after her, already distracted by the sound of a rustle, followed by a short flapping of wings.

On a perch high up in the wall sat a large, white-breasted owl, solemnly blinking its eyes at him. _Artificial,_ Han told himself. Birds had been the first species wiped from existence by World War Terminus. _There are no owls,_ he thought, watching the replica ruffle its feathers. He turned back at the whisper of slide doors from the far side of the hall.

Across the frozen ocean of polished floor strode the man who controlled a financial empire that extended way beyond Mars. George Lexington Tyrell, maternal cousin of the late Dr. Eldon Tyrell, rich beyond relief.

"Mr. Solo," he offered in unsmiling welcome.

Han dipped his head and gave the man a surreptitious once-over.

Dressed in the outrageous elegance of true cashmere, Tyrell looked like confidence incarnate at first glance, but a furtiveness lingered in the lines around his eyes. Although stocky in his middle age, something in the way he carried himself betrayed that he must have been slender once and used to being overlooked. A speckled beard half-covered his fleshy chin.

"As you know," Han started carefully, "I’m here to check up on the Voigt-Kampff equipment’s efficiency. You’ve progressed past the Nexus-6 brain, is that correct?"

"The Nexus-7 is still in the development stage," Tyrell answered in flat, unrevealing tones, "but of course our experts will be happy to assist, should it prove necessary to modify the rating technology."

_That’s not how it works,_ Han thought. _If the test doesn’t come off proper, you’re gonna can your new brand, and that’s the end of the story_.

"We should rate a batch of your latest replicant types first," he suggested, "and a control group of natural-borns next. Can you arrange that?"

"The Nexus-7 is far from ready for mass production," Tyrell replied. He was starting to sound like a faulty recording. "However, we could begin by diagnosing the limitations of the current scale and establish the parameters of modification. That way, appropriate test equipment will be available by the time we advertise the Nexus-7."

"How?" Han asked bluntly. "If you can’t provide a sample―"

Tyrell held up a hand. "That’s not exactly what I said."

So they had a fully-bred prototype after all. Deciding to play along, Han signaled grudging consent. Right now, getting a line on the company’s game plan mattered far more than the test’s effectiveness.

As if conjured by Tyrell’s will alone, the doors opened again, admitting a slender young man in plain black clothes. Han almost started in surprise. For a moment, he could have sworn that he’d seen the guy before, sometime during the revolt, though admittedly from afar. Still, he knew that face from search warrants posted throughout the belt by the local mining consortium. Blond hair, features dominated by arresting blue eyes and an expressive mouth. It had to be him.

But when Tyrell’s test pilot approached, the resemblance grew questionable. The newcomer looked a whole lot younger than the notorious renegade, hardly out of his teens, his face untouched by the pressures of war and revolution. Austere as his get-up might appear at first sight, shirt and trousers had been tailored from an expensive, shimmering fabric that set off the diamond glitters of the cufflinks. An employee? Han wondered. Or the pampered heir to Tyrell’s empire?

"This is Luke," Tyrell introduced in the negligent tones he might have used when presenting newly designed hardware.

"Hi," Han said, startled out of formalities. The first name was a match, too – then again, that could be sheer coincidence. Unless Tyrell had somehow managed to replicate the troublesome rebel. In which case the original was most likely dead.

The younger man nodded and produced a facsimile of a courteous smile, but his eyes stayed strangely lifeless.

"Mr. Solo," Tyrell continued, gesturing both of them to an alcove furnitured with a long table and neoprene chairs, "what kind of results would you obtain if you ran the test on a subject with an emotional or mental defect? Say, a schizophrenic."

Caught out by that unexpected question, Han gambled for time by placing his briefcase on the rosewood table. Was Tyrell talking about Luke, or just trying to bamboozle him with select mind games?

"It’s basically an empathy test," Han said, unsnapping the latches of his briefcase. "Someone with a defect in that area might check out as a replicant, that’s right."

"I see," Tyrell answered unaccountably. "In that case, only a bone marrow analysis could establish the truth, I take it."

_Yeah, but that’s as slow and painful as it gets,_ Han thought, setting his teeth as he assembled the complex apparatus. Maybe Tyrell had been referring to Luke all along, and if so, Han didn’t much like it.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the kid take a seat on the other side of the table. While there was something decidedly weird about him, Han’s gut instincts all said _human_. Spaced out on some mind-fusing drug perhaps, maybe even traumatized into a personality split, but not a replicant. Not a sample of the Nexus-7 then, though most likely a pawn in Tyrell’s private scheme.

Han nudged the telescopic arm of his pick-up unit into vertical position. From its focusing lens, a tightbeam slanted out in sizzling red, and the monitor showed the magnified image of an unblinking blue eye. The probing light triggered none of the defensive reflexes Han would have expected from a man who’d led an army of insurgents.

"Shall we begin?" Tyrell suggested.

Seating himself, Han extended his best business smile, though it glanced off Luke without effect. "Han Solo," he made up for the skipped introduction. "Law Enforcement Agency." He still couldn’t make that sound half as casual as it should.

"Yes," Luke acknowledged without inflection.

"Here we go then." Han picked up the first sheet and began reading out a question. "You’re taking a walk out in the countryside and come across the gutted carcass of a deer. What do you do with it?"

On his gauges, the needles swung abruptly into the red spectrum.

"I’d bury it," Luke said.

" _Bury it?_ " Han echoed. That kind of reply wasn’t listed among the predictable answers, whether from a replicant or a natural-born. And why should it be, original animal hides were far too valuable to waste. "Interesting." Han worked his features into a semblance of professional detachment. "Next question. Your girlfriend discovers she’s pregnant and gets an abortion without telling you about it. When she comes back, she presents you with a jar that contains the aborted foetus."

Luke closed his eyes. On the display, an accelerated heartbeat pulsed at a frightful tempo, and the dials went near crazy. Han wondered what kind of warped fantasy it took to cook up these questions. There was something hideous about the whole process, about pronouncing one bizarre obscenity after the next while infallible machines captured fear, anger, grief and translated them into electronic ciphers.

After a long pause, Luke said, "I can’t imagine hurting someone so bad that they’d want to do this to me."

"Next question," Han said tightly.

The polygraphic instruments hummed busily as Luke kept hitting red on the Voigt-Kampff scale until the needles seemed glued to the far side of the spectrum. Han tried to view the results with the necessary dispassion. It didn’t take a genius to realize he was facing something highly irregular here. Not a lack of empathy, but empathy of a degree it neared overload. Hell, the kid was sensitive like a heat-seeking missile, his responses set off by mere anticipation of another query. He couldn’t help himself, all those feelings just spilled over as the test proceeded from downright crude to unpleasantly intimate.

"Describe in single words all the good things that come to your mind when you think about your mother," Han read off the onionskin sheet. Through his mind rang the sharp report of Leon’s gun, but Luke said nothing, and for once the gauges drew a blank.

"He never knew his mother," Tyrell supplied.

Han took a deep breath and decided to deviate from his script. "What would you say if I lasered that owl over there?" he asked roughly, jabbing his thumb at the replica.

"Why would you do that?" Though Luke’s voice remained as calm as it had throughout the interview, the needle swung wildly.

Han shook his head. "I wouldn’t. It’s artificial."

"Are you uncomfortable with my answers, officer?" Luke inquired in a very different tone.

"I’m not an officer," Han retorted mechanically, "I’m a bounty hunter."

"Out of choice or necessity?"

It was hardly a question. Luke studied him intensely, and that look shot through Han with the power of a heat-ray, probing with the same, cutting accuracy for a hidden depth he knew he didn’t possess. Annoyed, Han felt a faint warmth crawl into his face.

"That will be enough," Tyrell intervened impatiently. "Step out for a moment, Luke."

With the mechanical obedience of a puppet, Luke rose from his seat, but when Tyrell touched his shoulder, he flinched visibly. Far from lifeless now, his eyes betrayed a flicker of desperation before thick lashes swept down and covered the feeling.

Tyrell watched Luke’s departure with folded arms. "Well?" he prompted as the doors closed. "How does my nephew rate on your scales, Mr. Solo?"

_Nephew_. Somehow, Han found that hard to believe. He tossed the disassembled equipment and the sheaf of papers back into the briefcase before he met Tyrell’s gaze. Smug was too pale a word to describe the man’s expression.

"He doesn’t," Han said shortly. "His responses are beyond the range covered by the Voigt-Kampff scale."

"I see."

"You’re not surprised, are you?" Han slammed the briefcase shut. "You produce someone with an excessive empathic bent, wherever that comes from, and it renders the rating parameters null and void. Point taken. But we’re not checking for potential telepaths, this is about the _lack_ of certain feelings."

"That doesn’t change the fact that your rating standards are less than comprehensive," Tyrell answered. "I suggest that you discuss this problem with your Department. My offer still stands, of course."

"Yeah." Han flashed him a combative grin. "They’ll be so glad."

* * *

Out in the streets lined by ratty shop-fronts and garbage that piled up into barricades, Han wondered, _How the hell’m I gonna handle this?_ He’d left his hovercar one block down to find himself an agreeable waterhole where he could end this day.

When he’d signed the contract, he’d throttled certain qualms about plugging replicants like clay ducks. That he might feel bad about grilling test subjects had never even occurred to him, but the truth was, it got pretty close to gutting someone alive. Han pulled the raincoat tighter around himself. If he kept reacting like this, the Department would pull him off the job on the charges of unprofessional conduct in next to no time. Bryant wouldn’t like the news about the Voigt-Kampff scale either, but there was no way around it. Tyrell had outmaneuvered them.

_I’ll worry about it tomorrow,_ Han told himself. _Right now, I need a drink_.

The district was governed by flocks of cyclers and peddlers yelling abuses at the disinterested stream of pedestrians in high, sing-song voices. The filthy rain dripped down from their large straw hats, and the sullen drone of a garbage truck added its repetitive bassline. Han escaped the rain into a narrow, crowded mall. The noise pitched to almost deafening, but at least it was warm and dry.

Close to the exit, business girls in transparent saris swayed to the sound of an oriental flute. Someone with a fez stopped to talk to them. Over his shoulder, he carried the leg of a camel. Pushing past, Han stopped by the pens and cages of a giant pet-shop. He could smell urine and raw meat. There had to be some live animals around then, unless the latest ersatz pets had been equipped with replicant organs.

Han bent nearer to the cage of a beautiful hawk that cocked its head to study him in turn with one observant brown eye. When the hawk spread its wings, he wanted to reach past the bars and touch its feathers, but the bird flinched at Han’s impulsive motion, blinking fine, long lashes. Something about it abruptly reminded him of Luke. The hawk had to be real. Nothing this elegant and proud could be a product of bio-engineering.

But then Han looked down and noticed the price tag attached to the bottom of the cage. Five hundred. He swallowed against the bitterness bleeding thickly through his instinctive, pointless yearning. Five hundred for a live animal would be a give-away.

Upset by his own reaction, Han walked away from the bazaar. Why would anyone want to own an artificial hawk? Yet people bought these fakes, took them home, cared for them as if they were real, and bowed willingly to the tyranny of objects. So much for the superior intellect of the human race.

 

**Three**

From the beginning of his third day on Earth, Han could feel the effects of the constant twilight on his mood. Instead of getting drunk the night before, he’d put a report together, wired it off to Bryant and gone to bed early. The morning’s weather report predicted increased dustfall, and it came as surely as bad news on a bad day.

_One beneficial effect of the war,_ Han thought grouchily. _They get the weather reports right all the time_.

Skipping breakfast, he got into his hovercar and let the navigation system plot a route to Conapt Building 7377-C, where J. F. Sebastian had lived. Couldn’t hurt to look at the den of Tyrell’s chief designer. Han tried to boost his own motivation by telling himself that he might even dig up some clues about the Nexus-7 project.

Airtraffic had slackened considerably, occasional runlights groping tiredly through the dancing dust motes. Han landed his craft as close as he could to the building’s entrance. Thick pillars framed the portal, but the illusion of opulence disintegrated at the first step inside. Dust swirled down through a broken skylight high up in the roof, and on the galleries, rain-puddles dried reluctantly. From the look of it, Sebastian had been the last tenant in the half-decayed structure.

Han pulled out his laser gun before nudging the apartment door open. The ongoing exodus to the Colonies had depleted entire cities on Earth, and there was room aplenty everywhere, but in the case of an attractively furnished apt like Sebastian’s, someone might still have moved in. Silence enveloped Han when he slipped through the door.

The gun still cocked, he groped for the light switch. Luminant panels fired into a smooth, white glow. Han’s eyebrows climbed as he walked from one cluttered room to the next. Clearly, the place had been scavenged for usable fittings and furniture, and now all that remained among unclaimed debris was a bizarre collection of mechanical toys. A motley population of fluffy animals, painted clowns and dolls of every size watched him with beady eyes while a pre-war music box he’d touched accidentally gave a screech before it launched into a thready rendering of _Oh Say Can You See_. Leaning against the pool table in the largest room, Han looked around.

All the computer equipment that must have been there was gone, the only indications being scratch marks on the floor and a pale rectangle on the wall. Han gave up on the hope of gathering evidence with a shrug and holstered his gun.

A minute later, he discovered an empathy box which had been shoved into a closet. Apparently, Sebastian had been an apostate from the Faith. Han eyed the horizontal monitor and sensor-equipped handles without much interest. Some people actually lugged those things to the Colonies, useless as they were for anyone who’d escaped the guilt-thickened climate of Terra. At the termination of war, most of the ancient religions had given way to the cult of Mercer which coupled the pathetic and the quaint with the latest outcrop of hybrid technologies.

Han ran a finger through the thick layer of dust that covered the empathy box. If he plugged it in and gripped the handles, he’d fuse mind and feelings with people all over the globe, and they’d all be joined in Wilbur Mercer’s mad, laborious climb to the mountain top, then suffer through his fall into the tomb world. Han had never talked to anyone who’d experienced the supposed rebirth that followed. Perhaps it was nothing but a rumor started to popularize Mercerism.

When Han shut the closet’s door, he tripped over a discarded toy on the floor. It looked like a miniature quadruped, originally white fur now gray and decomposing, and possessed a dislodged plastic horn that dangled from its nose. Han kicked it aside when he caught the sound of footsteps. Not Gaff this time, he knew at once.

The laser gun slid into his hand as he moved quietly to the door, flattening himself against the wall. Light footfalls passed through the outer room and faltered.

"There’s no reason for alarm," a calm voice said.

But there definitely was, Han thought grimly, if anyone could catch him unprepared like this. He kept his gun cocked and ready as Luke opened the door. Instead of elegant black, he wore a combination of dusky brown pants and shirt. His short black jacket glistened with rain, some drops beading in the blond hair.

Which meant that he must have dawdled around Sebastian’s place longer than he’d thought, Han realized. Long enough for renewed cloudbursts to overtake the dustfall.

"How’d you find me?" he asked roughly.

Luke stood before him with folded arms and offered a small, apologetic smile. "A hunch," he said vaguely, as if something about the concept eluded him.

Han lowered the gun by degrees. "Well, maybe it ain’t so hard to guess," he said dubiously, "considering what happened."

Luke didn’t answer that remark. "What _is_ all this?"

Hands pressed up under his armpits, he wandered around the room and studied the huddling toys. There was something in the way he walked, Han noticed, a controlled tension that spoke of honed reflexes and long training. Inevitably, it called forth the memory of Luke’s double in the Orion belt. And maybe he wasn’t so young after all. In the crisp lighting of this place, Han rated him closer to twenty-five than twenty, although his face retained an implausible innocence.

"How do you feel about hunting replicants?" Luke asked as he turned back. Flanked by a ragged army of dolls, he was vibrant with life, rain glittering in the pale hair. Not a trace of yesterday’s apathy lingered in his eyes.

Han shrugged. "No feelings involved," he said and heard the defensive note in his own voice. "There’s a law to keep them off Terra, and when they do come here, you can be sure there’ll be a dead body or three somewhere down the line. They look like people, but they’re still machines."

"Machines with an independent consciousness," Luke objected.

"A manufactured consciousness."

"People wanted it that way." Perplexity overtook Luke’s expression, and he passed a hand through his hair. "When you tested me..." he started, slowly walking closer. "All the questions you asked me... I can _see_ these things. As if they’d really happened."

Uneasiness crawled up Han’s spine at the notion. "Sure looked like that," he said grudgingly. Something about Luke’s presence kept distracting him from the job at hand, from the clear outline of a problem to be solved at gunpoint – and what if that was a well-calculated effect?

"What d’you want?" Han asked in a sharp tone. "If your uncle sent you to stop me from checking out the Nexus-7―"

"You think I’ve been programmed just like them?" Luke flared.

"I think you’re a spoiled rich kid who doesn’t get half of what’s going on here," Han charged, quoting a first-glance impression that no longer rang true. Not with Luke standing a mere step away, pride smoldering in his smoky blue eyes.

"I’ve been places against which Earth looks like paradise," Han added nonetheless.

"And where I grew up―" Luke began in an equally heated tone, but then he broke off with a sudden, startling smile. Somehow, it made all the difference. "I remember," he said softly. "The desert and... the sound of the wind shifting in the sand."

Han felt his suspicions melt away like the raindrops that dried on Luke’s neoleather jacket and couldn’t do anything to stop the process. Before he’d made sense of that odd lapse into reminiscence, Luke’s attention reverted to the present.

"Look, I know you have a problem with your equipment," he said seriously, "because the test didn’t work on me. I thought maybe I could help you recalibrate your instruments. I used to be quite good with technical things before..." He trailed off and rubbed at his chin.

"Yeah, why not," Han said, deliberately overlooking the half-hidden confusion. With or without Luke’s assistance, he doubted that the rating equipment could be modified to such an extent, but that hardly mattered. There was a fair chance he could coax some information about Tyrell’s current plans from his alleged nephew, an opportunity too good to pass up.

"Can’t do that today though," Han continued. "I’m scheduled to visit a couple of manufacturers this afternoon. How about tomorrow?"

Luke nodded. "Okay. But we’ll have to meet somewhere in the city."

"Fourth district," Han suggested. "That’s where I’m staying. There’s a café on the corner of Lincoln and Forty-Second."

"I’ll be there around midday." Luke hesitated a moment longer, then gave another quick nod and left before Han could offer him a ride back home.

 

**Four**

The following morning, Han sat down by the computer in his apt, knuckling gritty eyes. He’d slept badly, which was hardly surprising after his tour through the nether reaches of bio-engineering the afternoon before. Tyrell’s main production facilities were located on Mars, but specialized manufactories on Earth still supplied select organs. Like eyes, livers, or kidneys. The sight of a methane tank full of eyes, trailing unattached nerves and blood vessels, had stayed with Han for the better part of the night.

He took a swallow from his blistering hot coffee and concentrated on the directory that scrolled down the monitor. Within moments, he had access to the Municipal Library banks, and the first headword he typed was UNICORN.

Han snorted softly as the page unfolded. It showed an antique tapestry decorated with a lady in a brocade dress. A white horse with a single horn had placed its head in her lap.

_A Renaissance representation of a unicorn_ , ran the text beneath the picture, _fabled creature of ancient mythology. According to legend, the wild unicorn could be tamed only by the hands of a virgin_.

Han shook his head. Why the hell would Deckard dream of a creature that didn’t even exist? And how could Gaff know? Unless the two men had been much closer than Han suspected, he couldn’t picture them discussing nocturnal fantasies.

Punching in the next command, he flipped through the current newswires and adverts. Countless articles featured the lives and fates of genuine animals and their owners. Somewhere in Virginia, the last surviving badger had suffered a miscarriage after a complicated process of artificial insemination. A TRAGEDY, the headline ran.

Han paged through the Tyrell publicity dossier with equal disinterest. It looked exactly like the portfolio billboarded throughout the Colonies. Interspersed between manifestos expounding corporate philosophy, animercials showed peaceful replicants working as minefield laborers, garbage collectors, and smiling decontamination crews. Wearied, Han slapped another key, but instead of the directory, a large, violet blossom filled the screen, petals shivering as if touched by a soft breeze.

One by one, the long petals unfurled, disclosing a vista of wooded hills and meadows under an achingly blue sky. A computer-generated landscape for sure, no place as bright and verdant as this existed anywhere on Earth. Han reached for the keyboard again when the remaining petal rippled and swirled away in the invisible wind. At the center of the page, Luke stood under a tree laden with white blossoms like fresh snowfall. A red-haired woman lounged decoratively at his feet. LUKE AND ZORA, a caption melted out of the electronic grass.

As the picture zoomed in, Han got a closer look at the woman in her clingy green suit. Her curves were nothing short of voluptuous, her wide, sensuous mouth a blood-red invitation, her skin living porcelain. _Too good to be true_ came to mind, just as it had in the case of Rachael. A golden-brown snake curled around the woman’s left arm.

Han took another sip of his cooling coffee. Deckard had retired a Zora model, he recalled, red-haired, tall and trim. She’d made a living with a vaudeville snake routine in a downtown nightclub.

On the screen, the present incarnation of Zora turned her head to look back at Luke, and the couple traded slow, affectionate smiles. TRUST IS THE ANSWER, another caption appeared out of nowhere and cross-faded to WE BELIEVE IN REDEMPTION. Just as Luke reached down to touch the woman’s shoulder and the snake began slithering up his arm, the petals folded themselves back across the image. FOLLOW OUR STORY... a calligraphed inscription ran across the burning hyacinth backdrop.

Han leaned back and switched off the computer. What Tyrell intended with this sort of campaign was an easy guess. No matter what the law said, replicant pleasure models had long provided welcome entertainment for the sterile half of humanity. Introducing them as constant companions pretty much followed as the next logical step. And for someone who empathized with electric pets, Han thought, falling for a woman assembled from false body parts and cloned organs could hardly present a problem.

He glanced at his wristwatch and tried to ignore the way his gut tightened. Time to pack it in and head down to the café. But as he collected the rating equipment, a strange disappointment welled up, keen and intense, worse than what he’d felt looking at the hawk in that seedy bazaar. Han set his jaw, grabbed the raincoat, and took himself to the door.

 

The street level was modestly busy and the drizzle within tolerance when Han stepped from the building. Straight ahead, the café’s illuminated awning shone in rain-streaked yellow, but something drew his glance to the other side of the street. Blond hair strafed by intermittent spills of neon, Luke approached from the opposite direction.

Instead of trying to raise his voice above the racket of sputtering engines and garbled music, Han started to cross over when two men in long raincoats suddenly blocked Luke from view. Law Enforcement conducting another random check for illegal immigrants, no doubt. Not too concerned, Han lengthened his strides. He reached the group just in time to see one of the police officers pull out his gun.

"Can I help?" he inquired with a surreptitious nod for Luke. A quiet wave of adrenaline pulsed into his veins. "What seems to be the problem?"

The pair turned and taxed him with hostile stares. "Who are you?" the taller officer asked, a big silver star glittering on his chest.

"I’m with the Department." Flashing his badge, Han struck an officious pose. "Now, tell me what’s going on."

"Kid’s got no valid identification," the man answered coldly, and his ruddy-faced partner nodded without lowering the gun. "We’re taking him in."

"I’ve already produced my identification," Luke said in level tones, though he looked pale and tense.

"You shut up," the gun-toting officer growled. "A rookie could tell that your papers are faked. We’ll run a cerebral scan on you at the Hall of Justice, then maybe we’ll find out who you really are."

Privately, Han considered his limited options. "I’ll come along," he said firmly. "Maybe I can help clarify the matter."

"You know the guy?" The two officers exchanged swift, suspicious glances. "All right," the taller man relented edgily. "Who knows, we might require your testimony."

Their armored hovercar was parked around the next corner. It bore none of the Department’s insignia, Han noticed as he climbed into the back seat next to Luke.

"Don’t worry, we’ll get this sorted," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

In the cramped confinements of the back seat, he could feel Luke’s tension like an electrical charge. So maybe there was a problem with his papers after all ― surely Big-Daddy Tyrell could solve that for him by greasing the right hand somewhere high up in the Department’s ranks. Yet for some reason, Han felt a low-grade alarm settle in his stomach.

When the hovercar lifted and zoomed off south, vague misgivings flared into the proverbial bad feeling. "Where exactly are you taking us?" Han asked the man in the pilot’s seat.

"The Hall of Justice, up on Twenty-Eighth."

"The Department building’s north, off Hamilton Boulevard."

"That’s the _old_ building," their pilot answered blithely, "it’s been nothing but a ruin for years. If you’re working for the Department, you should know."

_Cut the crap!_ sat on Han’s tongue, but he swallowed it back down. Whoever these two maniacs were, they couldn’t be police. Han slipped a hand under his coat and reached for his own gun when he felt Luke’s fingers close around his forearm.

At the same instant, Ruddy Face shot him a dirty look over his shoulder. "How long since you last got booked, pal?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Han said, carefully withdrawing his hand. "I’m legal. Check with Chief Inspector Bryant."

"Bryant?" the pilot echoed in his arctic voice. "Never heard that name before."

"Well, give him a call," Han said testily. "The number is 942-1001."

To his complete surprise, the other man tapped the number into the vidphone, and after a second, the face of a switchboard operator appeared on the tiny screen. She listened to the request with an expression of virtuous boredom, then asserted that no individual named Harry Bryant was connected to the Department. Han swallowed a couple of favorite curses. They could have trapped the line, he reminded himself.

"Perhaps you were hired by an impostor," the pilot suggested haughtily while he guided the hovercar into a smooth descent.

They landed on the roof of a vast building decorated with neo-baroque ornaments and statuettes. As he climbed from the craft, Han saw a couple of uniformed cops board a larger transport and momentarily questioned his own sanity. How could two Departments operate within the same city, completely unaware of each other’s existence?

"Let me take your gun," the pilot said and looked him over with black, expressionless eyes while his companion locked the hovercar. "You’re either an impostor yourself or a degenerate with a dangerous mental defect." Raising his sidearm without haste, he pointed the muzzle at Han.

_Replicant,_ Han thought. He hauled in a deep breath. They were both replicants, and maybe there were more around, enough to set up a counter-agency of their own.

"Don’t get nervous, huh?" Han stretched his mouth into a lazy grin and pulled the gun from its holster.

"Toss it down."

"Sure." The moment he’d brought out his weapon, Han converted the motion and hurtled it with full force. It struck the other man’s wrist neatly, knocking the laser tube from his grasp.

"Duck!" Han yelled in Luke’s direction before taking a dive after his own gun.

His left side impacted hard with the concrete, but he rolled and fired before the bruising pain registered. When he regained his feet, the pilot sprawled lifeless on the rooftop, but Ruddy Face was advancing on Luke.

Before Han could yell a warning, Luke dodged the other man’s lunge with the lithe agility of a seasoned fighter, all thoughtless reflex and speed, his balance impeccable. The replicant officer pivoted, but Han’s first shot slammed him back into the hovercar’s bodyshell.

Watching him sag to the ground, boneless and heavy like a leaking sandbag, Han tucked his gun behind his belt. He hadn’t followed standard procedure. Before shooting them, he should have administered the test, not that he’d had much of a choice. The Department would have to run a bone marrow analysis to verify his conjecture.

Han rubbed at his bruised shoulder and realized that his hand was shaking. "You okay?" he asked Luke. "Let’s stash the bodies in the ‘car, then we’re outta here."

Bright blue eyes flashed with a mixture of reproach and wariness, but Luke helped him haul the two bodies into the back seat without another word. He seemed more in control than Han felt at that moment, and each of his movements was broadcasting a clear message of resentment.

"They were _replicants_ ," Han said irately, sliding the side door shut. "What do you think they would’ve done to you, to both of us?"

"I don’t know," Luke returned, but the way he bit his lip pronounced the very opposite.

"Trust me," Han said abrasively, "if they’d taken us in, we’d be floating in the nearest sewer by tomorrow morning."

As he circled the hovercar, his glance fell through a large skylight. Inside the building, uniformed officers were bending over a large desk, apparently following the weekday routines of responsible civil servants. Vertigo brushed the edges of Han’s mind.

_They’re going to take over,_ he heard Bryant’s defeated voice. And what if replicants populated every level of the whole goddamn tower? Or had they towed a few natural-borns into their operation, to mark up their credibility?

When he looked up, Luke had moved to his side. "Give me the keys," he said quietly. "I’ll fly us out."

The hovercar soared into a cloud-swollen sky as Luke guided it towards an upper traffic lane. Between the minarets of a vast power plant, smokestacks belched steam into the dull brass of afternoon while residual gases burned off in blue and orange flares. Pretty much an aerial view of hell. Han shielded his eyes.

"We’d better park somewhere quiet and leave the ‘car," he said, focusing on practical concerns. "They might track us down by radio or something... The Department can pick up the bodies later."

Luke nodded without taking his eyes off the scintillating cityscape. "Where?"

"Ninth District," Han suggested. "That’s a pretty desolate area."

A short while later, they left the unmarked craft between overflowing garbage containers in a deserted side-street. Incursions of premature dusk claimed the city’s bottom level, and the rain pelted down in heavy curtains. Luke walked with his head bent, an inward, impenetrable look on his face.

"If there’s nothing wrong with your papers," Han said, searching him with a sidelong glance, "that means they were after you. Any idea why?"

Luke shook his head and wrapped both arms around his torso. The rain snaked in rivulets down the side of his face.

"You knew they were replicants, right?" Han insisted. "Come on, you must’ve sensed that from the first moment!"

"Yes." Luke’s voice had turned flat and emotionless again. "But I can’t tell you why they stopped me. Perhaps they were looking for someone else."

"I doubt that." Han swept a hand through his wet hair and for the time being shelved the subject. "Listen, you got any money? We should be reaching one of the big avenues in a minute. You could grab a cab to take you back to Tyrell’s."

"I’m not sure I want to go there right now," Luke said as if to himself.

"Yeah, might be safer to have someone pick you up." Han stopped on the next corner to consider. Raindrops slid under the collar of his coat, and his facial muscles felt stiff. "Deckard’s place isn’t too far," he said after a pause, "and it ain’t the kind of place where anyone’d come looking for you. We could hole up there for a while."

"Deckard?" Sudden interest had kindled in Luke’s eyes when he looked at Han.

"A Blade Runner." Han worked up a dismissive grin. "Like me... Before he cut himself loose."

* * *

By the time they reached Deckard’s apt, rainwater sloshed in their boots and dripped in threads from coat and jacket. Luke’s hair clung in wet strands to his forehead and curled over his ears.

"Better take a shower," Han suggested, spreading his coat in front of the electric radiator. "We’ve both been out in the rain pretty long."

Although Luke took off his jacket and boots, he made no further move in the direction of the bathroom. Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, Han spread his hands.

"What?" he charged. "You feel sorry for those two replicants? Or is it that you think I’m a heartless bastard to blow their lights out like that? It’s what I do."

"Professionals call it a _skin job_ , don’t they?" Luke’s voice wavered with incredulity.

"Yeah, I’ve heard that too..." Han rubbed a hand over the roughness of his afternoon stubble. "Remember what you asked me the other day? Well, it’s a necessity, not a choice for me, all right? I need the money bad." Annoyance surged again as soon as the words were out. Why was it that he kept defending himself long before he’d even come under fire?

"The problem starts when replicants try to live like regular humans," he said, steering the conversation off his private affairs. "At some point, they discover that it just ain’t possible. They’ve only got four years, and their minds work differently, ‘cause there’s not enough time to gather experience. That’s when they turn violent."

"Perhaps the cell regeneration problem will be solved sometime soon," Luke put in, "then their lifespan could be extended."

"Yeah, but the point is, they’re needed the way they are," Han said. "You should know. They’re more resilient, they can exist in the type of environment where everyone else would kick off within days."

Luke tensed visibly, his jaw setting hard. "It’s the way they’re hunted that generates the violence," he objected. "If they were treated differently―"

"I’ve heard _that_ kind of argument before," Han stopped him. "But that way of thinking only gets everyone into trouble, and at the end of the day, things stay right the way they are." The bitterness in his own voice startled him. He closed the subject with a cutting gesture and swung towards the door. "Anyway. I’m going out to find a public ‘phone and call the Department. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t open the door to anyone, okay?"

Luke indicated a nod and watched him with a troubled, vulnerable look that accompanied Han back down to the street and stayed with him all through the short exchange with Bryant’s secretary.

When he’d hung up, Han stood staring at the dead vidscreen for a time, his mind vacant until someone tapped impatiently on the booth’s door. Head ducked between his shoulders, Han left the cramped cubicle, bought two beers in a small foodstore and crossed the street in a run. It was still raining.

 

Luke sat by the piano when he returned, studying the silent line-up of photographs, his hair sleeked back from his face. It made him look younger and accented the fine-boned features, the clear line of his jaw.

"You play?" Han asked. Setting the beer bottles down on the table, he picked up the used glasses and carried them into the kitchen.

"No," Luke answered with a vaguely puzzled undertone. "I don’t think so..."

"Why, you should _know_." A gush of rusty water sputtered from the tap. Han set the glasses down in the sink, letting the water run until it cleared, and washed his hands carefully.

"Yes, I should," Luke said softly.

He’d moved to the kitchen door, his torso bare, a towel slung over one shoulder. Loose strands of his drying hair spilled into his forehead. The lightpanel’s dim shine washed over skin smooth as honey and sculpted the lean muscles of his chest and arms. Deep in his belly, Han felt a wanton sting that turned to a faint heat on his skin, trailed by instant alarm.

_Oh, no, you don’t,_ he told himself, refusing the impulse to loosen his collar. _Or things’re gonna get more complicated than you can handle_.

"Wanna get in touch with your uncle?" he asked, mostly to distract himself. "To let him know you’re all right?"

"He’s not my uncle."

Han shrugged. "I’m not surprised."

"He won’t notice that I’m not in the penthouse." A thin, hard line appeared in the corner of Luke’s mouth. With an abrupt half-turn, he walked back into the living room. "He doesn’t think I’ve got anyplace else to go."

"So, who is he?" Han asked, following him. "Who are you?"

"He’s my guardian... though perhaps I should say my jailor."

The hard sarcasm in Luke’s voice took Han by surprise. "Come on, don’t you think you’re exaggerating?" he asked flippantly, searching for a lever to shift the mood back to something more manageable. "You’re as free to walk out as the next man, if that’s what you want."

"Technically, yes." Luke settled by the piano again, hands pressed flat against the seat. "It’s just that I’m indebted to him. One of the Corporation ships picked me up on an asteroid close to Rigel One, almost a year ago. I was delirious... not that I recall too much. I woke up in a hospital in New Tokyo. Tyrell took care of me."

"Generous of him," Han remarked.

"I thought so, too." With unfocused eyes, Luke stared ahead, straight through the photographed smiles of women who’d lived and died two centuries ago. "You’ve tested me... This talent I have―" He pulled up his shoulders, a stiff, restricted gesture. "It makes me a freak. Tyrell developed a program to help me use it and control it better. And then he started to study me..." 

"And then what?" Han prompted when he trailed off.

"I don’t know why I’m telling you this."

"Trust is the answer," Han quoted with marked irony, but all that showed on Luke’s face was blank incomprehension. Impatiently, Han tried another line of questioning. "Who’s Zora?"

"She’s a replicant."

"I know that."

"Officially, she’s a ‘sales device for prospective emigrants’," Luke elaborated with a quick intake of breath.

"And inofficially?"

The blue eyes swept aside, and for a long time, Luke said nothing, enclosed in his silence as if an old habit had taken sudden possession of him.

"Well, you don’t have to tell me," Han said caustically. "We’re on different sides after all. Have a beer if you want. I’ll go take a shower now."

"She’s a Nexus-7 prototype," Luke said before he’d reached the bathroom door. When Han turned back, a high color had swept across the younger man’s cheekbones, but he’d steeled his expression to absolute neutrality. "Tyrell’s genetic engineers put me through all kinds of tests and experiments," he continued dispassionately. "They were hoping to discover the exact genetic code that determines empathic abilities. They made some modifications on the DNS factors for replicants, but the results were disappointing. Zora is simply more... adaptable. She’d still rate below normal on your scales."

"Damn lucky it ain’t working!" Han shook his head, unsettled by the implications. "Ever think about the consequences? We couldn’t tell them apart from natural-borns, and it wouldn’t be fair on them either. Living the way they do, with that kind of sensitivity."

"I know."

"But you still helped Tyrell with his research."

Savage emotion shimmered across Luke’s face before he brought it under control. "You think I had so much of a choice?"

The lighting picked out the line of his collarbone and bare shoulder, and Han caught himself wishing to hell that Luke would get dressed. He could think of nothing but taking him to bed, and his hands clenched around the fantasized feel of bare skin gliding under his palms.

"Maybe not," Han said in the most impersonal tones he could muster while he elbowed the bathroom door open. "Maybe none of us does. That’s just the way life is."

The shower gave him time to put things in perspective and separate unchecked fantasy from brutal fact. Like the Nexus-7 project, extending way beyond Bryant’s worst fears. Like the way Luke had been pressured and manipulated into cooperating with Tyrell’s plans. The thought of him called up a swirl of contradictory impressions, fragments that just wouldn’t fall into a pattern. Luke’s confusion and abrupt withdrawals, his instinctive reactions in a fight, the defenseless look in his eyes.

When Han grabbed a towel, his irritation had fallen back on itself. _Got no reason to grind down on him like I did,_ he thought. _Tyrell conned him into this, and now he’s trying to figure a way out of it all by himself_.

While he got dressed mechanically, Han listened for a sound from the living room and caught nothing but the faint rattle from the ventilation. He gripped the door handle with the bizarre feeling of an abrupt dimensional shift, like he could step out into an altered reality.

Luke sat in an old lounge chair, his feet pulled up on the seat, tracing patterns in the faded covering with his index finger.

"Look, I didn’t mean to snap at you," Han said from the bathroom door and refused to consider the impact of relief in his stomach. "It’s just that I’ve never talked to anyone in a position like yours."

"My position..." Luke interlaced his fingers, his knuckles whitening with the pressure. "I want this to stop."

"Maybe we can stop it together." Han crossed to the table, blinking against a scythe of white light that swept across the dusty windows, then beyond. Perhaps chance conspired for him instead of against him for once. Luke’s assistance against Tyrell would dovetail neatly with the Department’s interests. Uncapping the bottles, he handed one to Luke and lowered himself on the outsized couch Deckard had used for a bed. "So how come you ended up on that asteroid?"

"I can’t remember." Luke curved both hands around the bottle. "When they found me, I didn’t even know my own name. Tyrell believes that I’m repressing something traumatic, and maybe he’s right. Some things have come back to me in the meantime... like the place where I grew up, my family, the people I knew, but I’m still missing several years."

The word for it was amnesia, and it explained a great deal.

"Hell, I’m sorry," Han muttered, trying to think around the sheer size of this. The landslide of years slithering down some black hole with dubious chances of retrieval. The fragility of recollection holding a life together.

"Luke _is_ my real name. I’m certain of that." 

He tilted his head to drink from the bottle. Through the twilight of the room, Han could see his skin catching the last shimmers out of the sinking dark. A slanting line of muscles caged his throat with each swallow.

Han fingered his own beer with nervous distractedness. The reel of revelations still cavorted through his head, and he could only hope that, come morning, everything would have settled into reliable sediments of fact.

"Han..."

He looked up, straight into serious blue eyes.

"I’d like to call you by your first name."

"Sure." As a habit, he didn’t care. Han told himself that the sudden intimacy of it was a whim sprung by overworked nerves.

"You look tired," Luke said.

"Yeah, I guess I am." He could feel the weight of it now, as if he’d been running and running and running all the way here. To this half-lit, functionally cluttered apartment where another man had chased jaded dreams around in circles inside his head.

The lightpanels flickered and dimmed to a discolored glow as Han took off his shirt and eased back on the large couch. Maybe another failure in the local power station. The general power shortage on Earth had fashioned this kind of illumination that mostly fell shy of reaching objects outside itself.

"Do you ever dream of unicorns?" he asked, turning his head to watch for Luke’s reaction.

"What?" The blond head shook. "What’s a unicorn?"

"Something that doesn’t exist."

Luke picked the insulated cover off the floor and shook out the dust that had gathered in its folds. 

"You’re bruised," he said, stripping off his pants. The couch dipped under the weight of his body. Although Han kept his face turned aside, the fleeting touch of Luke’s hand against his shoulder and upper ribcage alarmed him like a probe of visible light.

"Yeah, that’s where I hit the roof," he said thickly.

The cover rustled across them like a thin, steel-grey tide when Luke stretched out beside him and stilled at once.

"Can you hear the silence?" he asked in a soft, breathless voice. "All the empty apartments in this building and the empty districts of the city..."

Han closed his eyes and wished he hadn’t said that, making it real.

A vast, lungless silence crept out of the walls, from scrappy kitchen appliances and dust-clotted corners; it merged through the tapestry of distant street noises and frayed them like gauze, joining the regiments of entropic ruin and the permanence of the rain.

"I can hear you breathe," Han said. "Now try to get some rest."

* * *

Sometime during the night, a soft movement penetrated his numb, dreamless sleep. He felt Luke slip off the couch and didn’t think about it until a chill draft invaded the room. Han rolled over, gathering a skeletal knowledge of his whereabouts to him before he pushed up.

He found Luke on the balcony, naked except for his briefs, both hands clenched violently around the edge of the balustrade.

"Hey, what is it?" Though the rain had stopped, the concrete was icy cold under Han’s bare feet. "Bad dream?"

The low, pressured voice that answered him was barely recognizable. "We lost all our ships except one," Luke said in a harsh whisper. "They burned like moths, they burst apart and the pieces rained down in fire..."

He faltered as if a connection had been severed in mid-thought. In the runlight of a passing spinner, Han saw the white line of a scar that hugged his side, bifurcating just below the ribcage.

"I just don’t know." Luke bowed his head and stared down into the shadow drop of more than ninety stories. "Is this a memory or just a dream?"

"I don’t know, kid."

The look of him sent a sharp warning into Han’s gut. All the fallacious innocence had been stripped from Luke’s face and exposed a man fighting for a hold on his life, fighting himself to exhaustion.

Two cautious steps took Han to his side. He placed a hand over Luke’s clammy fingers and pried them loose with slow insistence. "It’s too cold out here," he said. "Come on, let it go."

"It’s possible that you’ve saved my life today," Luke answered as if he hadn’t heard. "And I can’t even tell you who I am... what I am. Not really." He squeezed his eyes shut before he turned, closing himself around resistant memory, a terrible strain in every line of his face and body.

Reason caught up with a warning Han wanted to ignore. Between them lingered a decision made the last night ― that he wasn’t going to do this, no way, because it could warp his priorities beyond recognition. But touching had become a simple necessity, a road home to the daily demands of survival, and perhaps by light of morning, recollection of it would fade into the dim ranks of dreams.

He wrapped a hand around Luke’s neck and leaned their foreheads together. "Come to bed with me."

It was only when they’d returned to the warmth and softness of the couch that the cold struck home in Luke’s body. Stretched out close beside him, Han could feel a convulsive shudder run through his frame.

"Let’s get you warm," he murmured, slipping an arm around the lean shoulders before he brushed his mouth over cool, dry lips. A quick, startled breath followed his withdrawal. Maybe Luke didn’t recall this either.

"Is this a way to remember, or to forget?" he asked, one hand lifting uncertainly to trace Han’s jaw and stray through his hair.

"Maybe both," Han said. "We’ll find out."

A strange, hot gratitude rose inside him and pushed thickly through his veins when he gathered Luke closer and kissed him with slow, possessive relish. A flicker of lashes grazed his cheek as he moved his tongue into Luke’s mouth, searching him until an abrupt response broke free of the waiting and matched his intrusion. Determined, curious. Han let his free hand roam, charting the smooth planes and clean lines of muscle and bone. The cadence of Luke’s breath faltered, then stumbled into a new rhythm.

Quiet and tense, he stirred against Han, his body waking gradually to the unhurried glide of Han’s palm until he moved with thoughtless instinct, and warmth chased across the surface of his skin. The watchfulness had melted from his eyes when Han broke the kiss, disentangling to take off his pants and pull up the light cover that sheltered them like a wing of cool air.

Soft hair tickled his forearm as Luke arched his throat, a fine prickle of sensation that slid like needles beneath the skin. Their mouths clung with demanding purpose this time, matched in a stormy rush that took Han’s breath like a dizzy oxygen high. It had been too long since he’d shared his bed with anyone, since he’d felt the thrills of acceleration throughout his body and this lawless hunger that cramped in his gut.

Their eyes met again, and the moment turned over to expose its cutting edge.

"Don’t stop," Luke said hoarsely.

Through the fabric of his briefs, Han traced the sharp ridge of a hipbone with his thumb, a flutter of muscle kindling under pressure, before he palmed the trapped erection. A mirror charge struck through his groin, jolting him against Luke’s thigh.

"C’mon," he murmured, reaching for Luke’s hand, "touch me."

He forced himself to lie still, dragging space for exploration with a long breath held captive in his lungs. Sensations spread in slow, delicious shockwaves. Luke touched him with a quiet precision, the serious look never fading from his eyes as he gauged the effect of every caress. The hands that stroked Han’s chest, flanks and hips seemed to take their directions from every half-formed desire until aching pleasure pulsed and contracted in his groin.

Han closed his eyes. On the swift rise of breath and heartbeat traveled a dangerous sense of liberation, as if the moment’s victory could restructure all the rigid prescriptions and routines of his exile. As if he could discover something unknown in himself through the contours of Luke’s body, molded against him like a shadow in the dark, or lose himself somewhere along the routes Luke’s fingers took across his body, probing for the tracks of old despair and the near invisible seams in his shields. Time he took control and limited this discovery to something he wouldn’t have to recall in the morning.

He leaned over to slip a hand beneath the waistband of Luke’s briefs, coaxing a shudder with trailing fingertips, until Luke pressed up hot and hard under his palm.

"Remember this?" Han murmured, brushing his mouth over the strands that clung damply to Luke’s temple.

Luke shook his head. His faster breaths warmed the side of Han’s neck until the skin burned in that place, an invisible mark imprinted on his flesh. With each move of his hand, insistent beats of blood throbbed close to the fine skin, and Han splayed his fingers across the pulse that jumped with frantic urgency in Luke’s throat, turning his face so he could watch every reaction, every small gasp and twitch of the finely shaped mouth.

From the strangeness of the day, they’d made it to the nowhere regions past midnight, and Luke lived this pleasure as if it was completely unknown. Han’s stomach tightened as he watched, a hot swell threatening with feelings that would make him vulnerable. To Luke. To the restrictions of life on Earth.

Han drowned every thought in a lingering kiss, drinking deeply of Luke’s breath and taste until Luke moaned into his mouth and a trembling surge started up all over his body. Close to the limit, Han pressed back into him. He didn’t need more than this, the grinding friction and the feel of Luke pulsing under his hand and the warmth of his lips trailing diffuse patterns across his chest. Broken gasping breath against his throat. One hand clenched into a helpless fist on his shoulder. And his own release took him in a white blast that swept him on into thoughtless, contented exhaustion.

 

**Five**

The sound that woke Han was a thin electronic wheedling from his wristwatch. Bryant expected him to report at nine sharp, he recalled fuzzily, a mere hour from now. When he moved, he felt Luke stir against him, warm and sleepy, each point of contact fetching a distinct memory.

This was morning, the usual wake-up call for pragmatism and focused thinking, yet the necessity he’d obeyed the last night was still real and present. He cupped a hand around Luke’s jaw and lowered his mouth against slightly parted lips, breathing him in, drawing him ashore across the distance of sleep.

Before he opened his eyes, Luke surrounded him with his arms. "It’s you," he said, awake within an instant. "Good morning."

Han looked down into hazy blue eyes. "I’ve got an appointment," he said inconsequentially before he kissed Luke again and slid closer, fitting their bodies together. Lush pleasure leavened through his senses, promising to eclipse the demands of his job and the riddles still waiting to be solved.

"I gotta go," he murmured reluctantly against Luke’s mouth.

The hands that had captured his shoulders tightened their hold. "Not yet," Luke said confidently. "You can take a cab later."

* * *

When Han walked into Bryant’s office at nine twenty, he had to remind himself to keep that treacherous bounce out of his step. Simple well-being coursed through his veins, alien after its long absence.

The fat man looked at him across an untidy rampart of paperwork, eyes hooded with the kind of resignation that could grow addictive.

"Solo," he said by ways of greeting. There was no one else in the office.

"Where’s Gaff?" Han asked.

"At a meeting in Seattle. Sit down. A drink?" Bryant rummaged for a nearly drained bottle and glasses in the lower parts of his desk. "You kept the lab people busy all night," he said as he poured a finger into each glass. "Took them a while to get proper results from those two bodies."

"Well?" Han accepted the glass and let a mouthful of old malt slither down his throat.

Bryant nodded heavily. "Replicants, like you suspected. Nexus-6, at a guess. Where’d you find them?"

Han took another sip before he delivered a detailed, though somewhat selective report that contained no reference to Luke’s involvement. "Don’t ask me how they did it, but it looks as if they’ve set up a mirror department," he finished uncomfortably, "and by now, they’ll know they’ve got two agents missing. You’d better whistle for the cavalry and move in fast before they can pack up and disappear."

Refilling his own glass, Bryant shook his head ponderously. "Can’t do that, pal."

Han stiffened in his seat. Four days ago, Bryant had been about ready to go after every single replicant with a rocket launcher. "Why not?" he asked warily.

"First, we don’t know if they’re all replicants. We can’t risk endangering civilians." Bryant leaned back, watching him from slitted eyes. "Secondly, think of the repercussions. A full brigade of replicants operating from the middle of the city. We’ve got to keep this under wraps."

Uneasiness began to coil in Han’s stomach. "So, what’s the idea?" he asked.

"I was hoping you’d have one." Bryant offered a sly, unsuccessful version of an engaging smile. "You’re the Blade Runner. It’s your responsibility."

"If you think I can take them on all by myself, forget it. This looks pretty much like a closed operation to me. No way you can get someone on the inside unnoticed."

Bryant’s smile stayed glued to his face. "That’s not what I meant. Tyrell’s behind this, I can smell it... and it’s _his_ head that I want."

Han didn’t like the battle reflex that stole up through his nerves. "Too dangerous," he said brusquely. "Tyrell’s a powerful man, and he won’t be nailed that easily. You catch the small fry, never the big fish. Wouldn’t be the first time either, for a couple of nosy cops to disappear conveniently. No, thanks. I’d planned on living a while longer."

"I’ll assign you my best men for backup," Bryant countered, unruffled.

"The answer’s no. I signed on as a simple bounty hunter." Han set his glass down on a pile of onionskin papers. "If you wanna go on a crusade against Tyrell, that’s your problem. Talk to the Federals, maybe they’re up to handling something this size."

"Can’t do that," the fat man repeated tiredly.

"Listen," Han said tightly, "I’m not putting my life on the line, just because _you_ can’t risk a public scandal. If anybody gets the hang of this, you’re out of your job, is that it?"

"They’d better not," Bryant warned.

Han extended a reassuring grin and hoped to see him squirm. "Don’t worry, I’m not gonna spread it around, but I ain’t crazy either. Now, let’s get back to business. I took out two replicants yesterday. Where’s my bounty money?"

"You’ll get it."

"When?"

"When you’ve finished the job."

Han pushed his chair back and rose. "You wanna think that over, Bryant. Or I might talk to someone after all."

The fat man heaved a deep sigh and leaned both elbows on his desk. "I don’t think you will," he said in a strangely wistful tone. "The thing is, Solo, Gaff checked your background thoroughly before we hired you. Can’t be too careful these days. And it turns out you were involved with the Orion rebel groups."

"You can’t hang that on me," Han said sharply. "It’s been tried before, and it won’t stick."

"Maybe not. But what about your buddy on Tanneus Three? What d’you think’s going to happen to _him_ if you don’t show up in time to pay your debts to the syndicate?"

This time, the calculated jab found its mark. Tension spread from Han’s gut into every part of his body. "That’s none of your business," he said.

"Just thought I’d mention it." Bryant gestured negligently. "You might be stuck here for some time, pal. Without a Department-issued transfer permit―"

"I’ve _got_ the goddamn permit," Han grated.

"Which can be revoked any time." Bryant drained his glass and offered a sad smile that blurred around the edges. "I’ve got you, Solo. You’re either cop or little people."

"Yeah, I bet you say that to every Blade Runner."

Staring through the smudged pane of the swing door, Han reviewed his options as decreed by Chief Inspector Harry Bryant, custodian of the Department’s progressive degeneracy. Well, but there was one card he hadn’t played yet.

"If you want Tyrell," Han said over his shoulder, "we’d better go for him directly."

"How?" Bryant asked softly.

"He’s working on a new project. A new generation of replicants with empathic abilities. With that kind of information, you can close down all his operations on Earth."

"C’n you prove that?" A faint note of excitement had crept into Bryant’s increasingly slurred voice.

"Not yet." Han turned slowly and pinned on a cocksure facade. "Can’t hurt to stake out the building on Twenty-Eighth, but that place won’t be our main battlefield. I guess I’d better see Tyrell again."

A hazy, blissful smile conquered Bryant’s face. "That’s my Blade Runner," he said. "I’ll fix you an appointment with the main man."

* * *

Han spent the next several hours in Gaff’s surprisingly pristine office, following random hunches on a cruise through the Library banks. On the wall across from the desk, a katana blade had been mounted, and a phalanx of shelved folders bespoke an ongoing war against the forces of entropy. All that seemed to be missing were the flimsy paper toys.

By the time Bryant’s secretary tiptoed in to confirm a grudging invitation to Tyrell Headquarters, Han’s back was beginning to get sore, and his stomach churned.

"Two thirty," he repeated. "Thanks."

The secretary cocked her head, likely searching him for a trace of Deckard, and smiled apologetically when he noticed. "You’re welcome, Mr. Solo."

Han stretched his arms and noticed the pronounced swing of her hips as she departed. Limited to Bryant’s company, her chances for practice had to be scarce, Han guessed. He stuffed some scribbled notes into his pocket.

Sleazy cop or sleazy criminal, that type invariably got their kicks out of hassling him, but maybe he could collect some payback from the big fish in turn.

A supremely drab day hung over the city as Han started his hovercar and swung past another titanic commercial screen. A geisha’s painted face smiled eastern mysteries in passing. Within minutes, the rain challenged his wipers into manic activity and later blurred the outlines of the colossal, flat-topped Corporation building. Tyrell Headquarters gleamed in garlands of light like a minor city. Absurdly, Han’s pulse picked up speed.

Luke would be back there by now, once again playing the part of Tyrell’s favorite guinea pig. Han grimaced at his own reaction. He’d blocked up the memories of last night every way he knew, but now they’d kicked loose to regroup in the pit of his stomach.

_Save it for later,_ Han thought. Luke would meet him at Deckard’s place tonight if he could slip away unnoticed. Unless he’d changed his mind.

 

George Lexington Tyrell presided over the shiny expanse of an onyx desk. "What can I do for you this time?" he asked with little patience.

"Well, it happens that everyone at the Department’s most fascinated by your latest publicity campaign," Han said, careful to sound at once eager and chagrined. "Especially the part concerning Zora."

Like every other room he’d passed on the top level, Tyrell’s office was spacious, its barren elegance relieved by scattered pools of pearlescent light. The reflections swam like stars on the polished desk.

"I see." Tyrell allowed himself a thin, condescending smile before he continued in a business tone, "You can’t test her, of course. Not with the flawed rating equipment your Agency presently employs."

"Pity." Han worked on a look of glazed fascination. "But I’d still like to take a look at her, if possible."

"That can be arranged." When Tyrell rose out of his swing chair, every movement proclaimed that he was doing his impertinent visitor an immense favor. "Step over to the window, Mr. Solo."

He gestured Han towards the far side of his office where a square meter of dark glass had been set seamlessly into the wall.

"A one-way mirror," Tyrell explained, and for a moment his eyes shone as if he’d stared hard into the dawn of a new creation.

Han stepped closer to the glass. The room beyond was bathed in unfocused, bluish light like an aquarium. Within, Zora went through some kind of martial arts routine. Twirling a pair of voltage sticks, alternately lashing out with her long, shapely legs, she looked every inch like one of the frenzied digital fighters in the latest interactive program. A tight jumpsuit clung to her trim shape, accenting all the right curves, as if cut from the slick black latex of adolescent fantasy.

"Impressive." Han said in a lowered voice.

"This is part of Zora’s fitness program," Tyrell said. "She is strong, passionate, brilliant, and she will change the public perception of replicants forever."

"More human than human," Han quoted the company motto.

"I see that she has made an impression on you," Tyrell returned with suggestive irony.

Beyond the window, Zora finished her routine with a sequence of pirouettes. Her hair shone red in the shade of electric fire as it flared around her face.

"Yes, our Zora is unique," Tyrell continued. "She combines all the attributes desirable in modern women. The perfect companion."

Before he’d finished, a narrow door opened at the replicant’s back. Han stifled an instant reaction when Luke entered the room, dressed in equally skin-tight black. A sudden movement revealed the sabre he carried to the light. From somewhere below the window, Zora picked up a similar weapon and raised it in greeting.

"A perfect couple, wouldn’t you agree?" Tyrell cocked his head appreciatively as they began to circle each other, the foils of their sabres painting out slashes of brightness. "I’d always hoped that my nephew’s special abilities would advance the company’s best interests, but there have been difficulties. Perhaps mental instabilities are the inevitable consequence of a talent such as his. The therapies that helped restore his emotional balance were both unusual and extremely expensive. In a manner of speaking, Luke is as much my creature as Zora."

From his point of view, Han thought, it probably didn’t make any difference. All life was willing matter, trembling in anticipation of the creator’s hands, ready to have their petty lusts wrung for the annual billion-dollar turnout.

"Your nephew," he started with reinforced neutrality, "doesn’t strike me as much of a businessman."

"Or a publicity magnet," Tyrell agreed with a frigid smile.

_But he’s goddamned beautiful,_ Han thought. In the other room, the fencing accelerated into a savage dance, and for all of Zora’s calculated precision, she had none of the earthy grace that marked Luke’s lunges and parries. Nor the erotic power he radiated without thought or effort.

"His empathic gift is the key," Tyrell continued. "Due to a random genetic flaw, he has been chosen to look into the hearts of mankind. The public craves catalysts like him."

"You make it sound as if he could be some kind of post-colonial Wilbur Mercer," Han said skeptically.

Tyrell nodded. "Very perceptive. Yes, that is a possibility, isn’t it? In a way, Mercer was an accident of war. He fulfilled a common need to re-enact collective guilt before it could turn into mass suicide." Obviously, this was a favorite subject with Tyrell. Han could see the man warm to his lecture by swift degrees.

"The religious type is never as attractive as he is during times of crisis, but I daresay we’re on the verge of overcoming that crisis at last. We have developed a new confidence in the survival of mankind." Tyrell lowered his voice as if sharing the secret of all existence. "Earth is dying, but people still have dreams."

"Why the snake?" Han asked, recalling the digital wonderland.

"A symbol of redemption." Tyrell clasped his hands together. "The cult of Mercer is depressing. We will set an optimistic message against it. The cathartic romance between Luke and Zora, the love that can redeem even a soulless replicant. Zora will attract the masses, and she’s going to add the glamor Luke admittedly lacks. People are going to channel their dreams through her."

Han stared through the window at the perfect woman. Here was a man who’d helped to give replicants the ability to dream. The next step followed logically.

"You, Mr. Solo, are our natural enemy," Tyrell said now. "A man with no attachments. No desires. No specific desires," he amended. "It almost makes you incorruptible. Almost."

_No dreams,_ Han thought. And it suddenly seemed like the greatest security he’d ever had.

"You seem to know me pretty well," he said, carefully putting down the bait. "But everyone’s got a weak spot or two. Though something like Zora is way beyond my, um, salary bracket."

Tyrell showed no surprise. "Which is hardly adequate, considering your professional hazards," he said. "If our company were to distribute the Zora subtype among exclusive circles on Earth, I’d like to see men of your stature step up to the class where they belong."

"The replicant laws would have to be changed first," Han objected like a good little cop.

"Why make matters so complicated?" Tyrell asked pleasantly. "Local agreements between the responsible Departments and the company management could be to our mutual benefit."

On the other side of the mirror, the fencing match had ended. While perspiration sheened Luke’s face, Zora’s marble features remained dry and impervious.

"I―" Han cleared his throat and made his present abstraction part of the act. "This is a departmental matter. We’ll keep in touch."

Tyrell held out a hand as he turned away from the dark glass. "Take your time. We’re in no hurry."

* * *

Later, with the onset of a sickly dusk, Han took refuge in a low-down dive of the Ninth District. Balancing himself on a barstool opposite a matte grey surface that could have been a wall mirror in a previous life, Han toasted to his dubious feat of the day. He’d posed successfully as a corrupt cop. And Tyrell, who could have each of his devious brain cells glazed in platinum, had fallen for it like a ton of bricks, as the saying went. Too fast, too easy, old instincts suggested, but Han chose to ignore them. If he could string the man farther along, Tyrell would trap himself in the meshes of his own gambit. Provided that Bryant played it square, left his cigar-smoke infested den to slap cuffs on the most powerful man on Earth, and paid off his Blade Runner by the end of the day. Hardly a scenario with a realistic flavor.

Han glanced at his wristwatch. Eight thirty. Luke hadn’t mentioned when exactly he expected to arrive at Deckard’s apt. Perhaps he was already there. Perhaps he wouldn’t come at all. This morning, Han had reprogrammed the door lock, and they’d both memorized the new code. It should be safe enough. He pictured Luke by the piano, searching for the essence of memory across the nameless, photographed faces. Perhaps he’d wait for an hour or two before he left again. Han ordered another beer and sloshed it around in the glass. He could hang out here a while longer, and by the time he finally got to Deckard’s place, the living room would be dark and quiet, and it wouldn’t make any difference if Luke had been there or not.

A second later, Han recognized the impulse. He was in retreat, like he’d unlearned living somewhere between the Tannhauser Gate and Terra. Dropping a couple of bills beside his untouched beer, he left the establishment in long, angry strides.

 

When the lift stopped on the ninety-seventh floor, the silence surrounded him with the vicious pressure of vacuum around the ruptured hull of a starship. One hand on the butt of his gun, Han tapped in the code, and the apartment’s battered door swung back obediently.

Inside, moody lightpanels painted out silhouettes in shades of brown and dark ocher. And one of the silhouettes turned towards him.

"I’ve been waiting for you," Luke said ― so much a mirage it took Han like a blow.

For a moment, neither of them moved, they just stood watching each other in a charged kind of silence. Han could feel relief twist like a blade inside him and with it something that ran deeper than the memory of last night and the needs of the moment.

"I could’ve been here earlier," he admitted before he could stop himself. "I’m sorry."

Luke shrugged, and with the motion, his quiet reserve eased off. "I bought a couple of beers on the way," he said as he walked back into the room. "And I stopped by the Vietchin kitchen on the corner. In case you’re hungry."

Hungry. Well, he was hungry all right. His entire body had tightened under the impact of anticipation. Han took off his coat and used the moment to focus himself. Away from Luke’s presence and the bronze light catching on his hair, in his eyes.

"How about you?" Han asked.

"Not now," Luke said over his shoulder, but the casual tone didn’t quite come off.

"Well, we can have a bite later." Han picked up a beer and seated himself in the faded armchair, establishing a minimal distance. "I met Tyrell today," he said.

"I know." Luke flashed one of his sudden, untroubled smiles at Han’s reaction. "He mentioned it to me. I’m not _that_ much of a telepath."

"That’s a relief," Han said dryly while the tension receded gradually. "Bryant ― that’s the guy I work for ― thinks Tyrell’s behind the replicant operation on Twenty-Eighth. That it’s been set up to replace the original Department eventually. I don’t know... I guess he wouldn’t mind blaming the bad weather on Tyrell, too." Han paused, exasperated by the way he kept violating some of his major principles. Trust without signed and stamped reinsurance being a luxury he couldn’t afford, and all that.

"You don’t want to talk about it." Luke lowered himself onto the arm of the couch. "Because you can’t be sure which side I’m on?"

"I watched your fencing match," Han said incongruously. "Tyrell’s got all kinds of plans for you and Zora..."

"Yes." Luke glanced down as he opened a beer for himself, weariness gaining a hold on his face. "If you don’t really know who you are, it’s easy to accept any mold you’re offered. And Tyrell offered me the best of everything. All the things that can be bought... which is a lot. Naturally, he made sure I’d see things his way. He turned me into a spoiled rich kid quite easily."

"Believe it or not, I didn’t mean that," Han grumbled.

"Recalling the way I grew up put things in perspective," Luke said calmly, ignoring his intervention. "That, and what I could feel from him, from his staff. In all his efforts to school my abilities, he never considered that."

Han looked straight into those shadowed eyes. "It’s not that I don’t wanna trust you. More like the opposite." He gestured emptily, pretty sure he wasn’t making much sense. "Usually, it’s the reverse."

"You don’t want to trust anyone?" Luke set his bottle down without drinking from it. "It’s just as I told you last night. I want this to stop. For myself as much as the replicants. Perhaps Tyrell’s genetic engineers will find a way of extending their lifespan someday, but until then... there’s too much pointless suffering." A sharp edge entered his tone when he added, "I want to be free of this."

But to get away from Tyrell and carve out a life beyond the Corporation’s reach, he needed more than help. He needed a reason that would keep him going.

"I remember telling you last night that we can give it a try together," Han said. "But you’re the one who’s got a whole lot more to lose."

"Nothing that I care for," Luke returned soberly. "What do we do?"

And here he was throwing it all away, for nothing but a sense of justice and a hope for freedom. Han couldn’t make himself argue with that. "We need material proof for Tyrell’s grand scheme of creating empathic replicants," he started, pushing from the chair to pace two steps. "That would give the Department a legal handle to move in on him. Your statement would help, but it’s hardly enough when the whole thing goes to court."

"Every single test they ran has been documented minutely." Luke rose from his perch and stretched, hands locked behind his neck. "It’s all in the computer banks back at Headquarters."

"You wanna be very careful." With the sting of concern, Han acknowleged the predictable guilt if something went wrong. If anything happened to Luke.

"I will be."

The white glare of a passing barge stabbed through the window behind Luke and fanned out around him, momentarily plunging his face in shadows. Han blinked against the invasive light, and the next moment, Luke stood before him, one hand lifting to glide up his chest.

"Don’t want you to think you gotta do this," Han said, his mouth dry. "Last night was one thing, but now―"

"What about this morning?" Luke asked, and Han could feel him again, in the burning beneath his skin.

"This morning was..." All that came to Han’s minds were crude platitudes. He stopped fumbling for words when Luke hooked a finger behind the top fasteners of his shirt and began slipping them apart. "What now?"

"You could take a shower," Luke said, his voice not quite steady, "or come to bed with me. Either way, you’ll have to get undressed."

Han filled his lungs with the stale, filtered air and reached for his shoulders. "Yeah, in a moment," he said huskily, holding Luke off, then pulling him closer.

For a drawn-out second, he lingered in electrified anticipation, Luke’s mouth a mere inch away from his own, releasing a controlled breath. And from the first moment of kissing him, Han could think nothing except how good it felt, the softness of Luke’s mouth under his own, the teasing pressure of his tongue seeking entry in turn. Han slid his fingers underneath Luke’s collar, reclaiming the intimate warmth of his skin. Gauging the speed of his heart while their mouths moved against each other, searching, shifting angles for greater depth. His senses turned on all at once, like a flare set against bared nerve under the pressure of Luke’s arms around him, their bodies drawing together in irresistible slow motion.

"Luke..." Han’s breath escaped roughly when he finally pulled away. "You can’t imagine how it’s been all day... trying not to think about last night, this morning."

"I did. All day."

The blue eyes glittered with a promise of laughter, with an awareness of desire as real and immediate as the light touch of confident fingers that loosened Han’s shirt. His hands got caught in the tangled sleeves, and he watched, trapped, as Luke unfastened the bunched cuffs, pale hair brushing the bottom of his throat before questing lips followed, tasting his skin with slow absorption.

The passage of moments segmented into fits and starts, every touch leaping into bright and sudden focus. Luke stepped back to remove his own shirt in turn, and it rustled to the floor, into the silence that filled with their rough breathing. Crushing them together, Han let his hands prowl wherever he could reach, recalling the way that lean, toughened body came alive with desire. A swift, flying heat shot through his groin when Luke started on his belt, and one hand strayed down to probe for his straining sex through the cloth of his pants. Han breathed in sharply. His pulse thickened with the thrill that lashed through his insides and plunged him into clumsy, uncontrolled arousal when Luke pushed his pants down to cradle his hips.

Arms locked around each other, they stumbled backwards against the couch, a winded laugh shared between their mouths.

"I gotta be out of my head," Han muttered. He caught Luke’s face between his hands to kiss him long and hard. "There’s a law against this..."

"Don’t make excuses."

"...and probably another against how much I want you," Han finished as they went down together in a tangle.

He wriggled out of his pants and briefs while Luke pulled off his boots. A swift pulse thrummed in his body as Han watched him undress. Beautiful, volatile like a flame from the middle of night, Luke kneeled over him while the dim glow played across the muscles of his stomach and chest, translating the rhythm of his breathing into shadow and light. Hands propped on either side of Han’s shoulders, he leaned over, and their mouths found each other when Han tilted his head back.

_Give me a reason,_ he thought, burying his fingers in Luke’s hair. _Give me a goddamn reason to go on from here_.

He gave himself over to the touch of Luke’s hands, gentling, arousing him, stirring him with the force of unacknowledged needs that turned his own body into unknown terrain. His nipples tightened under the teasing pressure of lips and fingers, and hot tingles laced through his senses when a warm mouth cruised his ribcage, trailing kisses and small bites down his stomach.

"Come here," he murmured, "closer."

Without a word, Luke pressed into him, into a consummate contact of skin on skin, touch-starved nerve endings set alight at every point of contact. Shifting constantly, Luke slid over him, and Han ran his hands down the slender back, learning him anew in every flicker of pulse and intake of breath. He felt lean muscles strain beneath the skin and hard flesh push against him when Luke eased one leg between his thighs, sliding them apart until they were matched in a thoughtless, claiming rhythm. Strong fingers curled around his cock and with a single touch broke the hold he’d kept over himself.

Han bit down on a groan and dug his fingers into taut skin, all of him moving forward in recognition, into a yearning that cut back the years to raw amazement. Like every uncertain dream had been plucked from his unconscious mind to be shaped in skin and flesh.

Molded against him, Luke urged him along, stroking him in time with his thrusts, a passionate rhythm that invaded blood and nerve until Han could feel it in the depth of his body, coming and receding in powerful waves. His legs clamped hard around the rocking hips. Pushed deeply into the softness of the worn couch, he fought for each breath and lost the silent battle in another moment. He arched under the jarring intensity of a deeper thrill, pressing off the bed, his eyes wide open. A deep, broken groan rang in his ears.

Luke tossed his head back, a blur of light as he raised himself. Through cascades of raw pleasure, Han felt the driving motions against his belly, the sudden tremor as the tension broke with fast, liquid pulsations. Luke slumped down over him, burrowing into his embrace.

Against his chest, Han felt his harsh breathing. Luke was sprawled out atop him, and he wanted more than a night or another. When he thought of morning, he felt the sharp contours of a loneliness that had never troubled him before. He closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to think ahead.

For a short while, he slid down into diffuse darkness, balancing weightless across a thin blade of light. He didn’t realize he’d drifted towards sleep until a nervous muscle spasm jolted him back to full consciousness.

Luke was still pressed close against his side, one arm wrapped around his midsection. "What is it?"

"Nothing." Han turned his face to look at him, steadying himself on a couple of slow breaths. Losing himself in the gentle depth of Luke’s eyes. "Why me?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"No, you couldn’t." Han traced the curve of his mouth with his thumb to memorize a fleeting smile.

"Because you’re different," Luke said. "I could tell from the moment I saw you... Because of the way you looked at me during the test. Because you’re angry. You hurt. You burn." He stopped himself with another quick, awkward smile. "You don’t belong here."

"And you do?"

"No. At least I’ve found out that much about myself."

_You just don’t know where,_ Han thought. His hand wandered idly down Luke’s side until he felt the scar that ran like a knotted thread beneath the skin. It couldn’t be older than a year or two.

"Remember where you got that?" he asked, propping himself on an elbow.

Luke shook his head.

"It doesn’t look like anything that could’ve been caused by a knife or a plasma blast... more as if something large with a jagged edge hit you."

"You seem to know a lot about it," Luke said, watching him closely. "Why did you come here? What is it you’re running from?"

For a moment, Han considered denial. Unburdening to strangers was among the few bad habits he’d managed to avoid so far, but if he chewed on the memory much longer, someday soon it would start choking him. And Luke was hardly a stranger anymore. "Ever heard of the Orion revolt?" he asked. "About a year ago?"

"I’ve read about it, but I suppose the reports I saw were very one-sided."

"You bet they were." Han snorted. "It started in one of the mining colonies. The kind of place where only replicants are supposed to work, ‘cause the living conditions don’t deserve the name. In reality, it’s where they send human trash without a return ticket." Before his inner sight stretched gravel wastes under layers of toxic gas, a runway to perdition. "Like people who’ve bought property in the colonies and then lose their jobs," he continued. "When they can’t pay off the installments anymore, they get thrown in with the substandard humans, as they call them."

"But who―?" Luke started.

Against his side, Han could feel a fast breath expand Luke’s chest. "Who sends ‘em to the mines?" he guessed. "The profiteers out there. The Orion mining consortium, in this case. They’ve got the so-called authorities in their pocket, so there’s really no one to stop them."

Luke’s expression tightened. "What happened?"

"At first, it was just the workers, then the couriers and some security troops joined up. There were riots, several administrators got mauled and some buildings burned. But the consortium came down on them so hard, it alarmed even the bureaucrats and the square little colonists. We’re talking of mass murder here. People burned alive in the mines, drowning in liquid slag they poured down the ventilation shafts... that type of thing." Han struggled to control a quick surge of too accurate memories. At the time, he’d been among the pilots who ferried survivors to understaffed, underequipped medical facilities throughout the sector. "Following that, part of the military declared their independence and started a full-blown rebellion against the consortium."

He paused to meet Luke’s eyes. Just like the night before, a startling change had seized his features and drew thin lines around his mouth. The resemblance had never been so striking.

"There was one guy among them..." Han started before he could think about it. "They say he planned the rebel attack at the Tannhauser Gate."

"Go on," Luke said, his voice dropping to a dry whisper.

Han hugged him a little tighter. "He looked exactly like you. I only saw him once, but... I could’ve sworn you’re that man the day we met."

"Do you know what happened to him?"

"The rebels lost the battle, and he disappeared. There were all sorts of rumors that the consortium had gotten him after all, but most of us believed that he was simply lying low somewhere relatively safe."

The muscles in Luke’s throat worked as he took it all in, and his eyes swerved, searching for a focus. "Why did they lose the battle?"

"The consortium hired every available gunman in the sector and invested a whole year’s profit in the most ludicrous collection of warships and missiles you’ve ever seen. Even so, the rebels got them good, before they had all that firepower shoved down their throats."

"You were there."

"Yeah." Han closed his eyes and for a long time inspected the darkness that folded around him. "Never thought we could win, but I got involved anyway... I was with the recon teams. I stayed around long enough to figure that there wasn’t a damn chance to win this one. Then I ran." He could feel it bubble up inside him, scathing and trenchant and immune to the passage of time. A bitter haze of recrimination blackening every thought. "Guess that makes me a deserter," he finished. "At the time, I just wanted to survive."

"I’m glad you did," Luke said softly.

"Don’t say that, damnit!" He pushed up, releasing a flash of corrosive anger into the motion. "I’m no better than the mercenaries they hired to beat back the renegades."

Unimpressed, Luke met his eyes. "I trust you."

"You hardly know me."

"I can feel your isolation. Your disbelief... because there’s too much hope left."

Han clenched one hand tight, holding himself together, struggling with a pointless impulse to bolt from the grip of recollection. "You’re crazy."

"It’s all there inside you, and it’s keeping you alive."

And when Luke reached across to spread his fingers over the heartbeat that battered his sternum, Han could almost feel it, coming awake to make his life miserable as hell in the way he deserved. All the crazy hope rallied from the countless places where he’d buried it.

"Do you ever trust anyone?" Luke asked, his thumb moving along the shallow curve of his collarbone.

"My co-pilot..." Han let his head sag against the back of the couch. "He’s what they call a mutant, not _normal,_ but I’d trust him with my life. As loyal and smart as they come, except that his looks aren’t up to standard. He’s... got a lot of hair. They say he looks like a monkey, not that I’ve ever seen one. He was with the first group that went against the consortium."

"So that’s how you got involved in the revolt."

"Kind of, yeah. I’d never planned to, you know, but... well, they needed ships, and my old crate was available. And there I was, fighting for the rights of the so-called substandard humans, the specials, the mutants... whatever fancy names they come up with." Han shook his head. What the hell was getting into him, to pour it all out like a Mercer-addict during fusion? A strange weariness had crawled up inside him that made him vulnerable to Luke’s touch, to that close, unswerving attention. "Don’t look at me that way," he said hoarsely. "Don’t―"

As if he’d extended an invitation, Luke’s hands moved along the tense set of his shoulders, and after a moment’s token resistance, Han reached back to draw him close. Ready at a touch to lose this battle against himself. When Luke turned his face into his shoulder, Han felt a small shiver tear loose under the slow glide of his lips.

"You really think I could be the rebel leader?"

"Unless you’re his twin brother."

"If only I could remember. Those dreams I’ve had..." Luke trailed off into a shrug, a heaviness settling over him.

_And if you hadn’t dreamed,_ Han thought, _neither of us would be here tonight_.

"Luke, listen to me." His fingers sifted through blond strands as if that could take the sting out of every word. "I’ve read up on a few things today... Maybe it wasn’t an accident that you lost your memory, and it ain’t you who’s repressing your recollection." He swallowed reflexively. "I figured that if they can implant bogus memories in replicant brains, then the opposite’s gotta be possible, too."

"Is it?" Luke’s head lifted, and his fingers closed around Han’s arm with nervous pressure.

"That’s exactly what they do in some psychiatric institutions. They use drugs, memory blockers, though they work that way through hyperstimulation of different areas in the brain."

"And this drug... its effects, are they permanent?"

Han shook his head. "The effects wear off after a time, depending on the dosage and the duration of exposure," he quoted what he’d scribbled down in the morning, keeping his anger leashed in those dry words. "But so long as you stay with Tyrell, we can’t be sure if that’s what happened."

"I’m not staying any longer than I have to." Renewed tension had leaped into Luke’s muscles, as if to shield him against a consuming desperation.

Han could trace its progress under his hands and kissed him with a different kind of passion that called up too much from the blockaded parts of himself. He shifted Luke closer until they were entangled, arms and legs, each draw of breath a slow release into thoughtless desire.

"I need to know who I am," Luke whispered, holding on hard. His eyes were the color of rain, reflecting a different sky where clouds would burst with the fall.

Han touched his face, and his pulse came out of a jumbled rhythm, slipping, sliding into sudden stillness. "Doesn’t matter who you are," he said. "I want you. I don’t think I’ve ever―"

But before he could violate another personal directive, Luke kissed the rest off his mouth.

 

**Six**

The digits of Han’s watch glimmered weakly from the small display. Four forty-five. Drifting aimlessly between unfocused states, he’d come out of a brief doze, still wrapped around Luke who didn’t seem to need any sleep at all. This night.

"We can’t stay much longer," Han murmured, regret merging through the sprawling contentment in his body. "And next time we meet, it’d better be someplace else."

Luke turned his head, soft hair tickling Han’s skin below the ribcage. "What happens when I manage to retrieve the data about the Nexus-7?"

"The Department’s gonna find a safe place for you until they’ve got Tyrell slammed up and serving time." And he’d make damn sure that Bryant’s sloppiness didn’t spill over into security measures, Han promised himself. But, no matter what the protocols of witness protection prescribed, they wouldn’t get much of a chance to be together. Not like this. "They might give you a cover identity, too," he added.

"Does it make any difference?" Luke asked with a hint of sarcasm. "It’s not as if the current one’s the real thing. At least packing won’t take long."

"Hey, don’t rush this." Han curved a hand around his neck for emphasis. "Doesn’t have to be tomorrow or today."

"And where will you be?" Luke asked.

"I’ll be around for a while."

"How long?" Propped on his elbows, Luke studied him with bleak, steadfast anticipation.

"Until I’ve got the money I need," Han said, insensibly annoyed by the truth he couldn’t soften or change. "I took the job ‘cause I need some fast cash to bail out my friend. Can’t let him down. It’s _his_ life that’s on the line here."

_And maybe yours will be too, sometime soon,_ he thought, unnerved. But Luke didn’t seem to have any comprehension of the hazards he’d chosen.

"What’s wrong with him?" Luke asked, tracing a path through the dark fuzz on Han’s chest with his fingertips.

"We got in trouble with a syndicate on Tanneus Three..." Within moments, Han could feel the distracting power in that gentle touch, and he clasped a hand over Luke’s. "They think they’ve got a right to ask a share of every free trader’s profit. When we refused to pay, they sent a bunch of gorillas to rough us up. I came around to a note saying what they’re gonna do to my partner if I don’t shell out the money."

Pulling away, Luke dipped a brief nod. "I understand."

_I don’t think you do_. Movements slow with reluctance, Han broke all physical contact and sat up to trail an absent glance across their scattered clothes on the floor. "I need a shower..."

"Will you come back for me?" Luke asked in the sober tone he might have used to inquire about the time.

Han took a moment to select the name he deserved for considering a promise like that. "Yeah," he said shortly without turning. "I’ll come back for you."

 

He’d only just buckled his belt when a knock on the apartment’s door froze him. Hair still wet from the shower, Han padded across and motioned Luke to stay down on the couch.

The second rapping carried a pronounced note of impatience. Han pressed the intercom button by the door. "Who is it?"

"I’ve got an infinity key, Solo." Gaff’s voice was a harsh, electronic whisper. "Just trying to be polite."

"Too generous," Han grumbled, releasing the lock. Stalling wouldn’t get him anywhere with Gaff.

Raindrops glistened like fine dust on the lieutenant’s hat and coat as he stalked in and appraised Han with a caustic look. "Getting ready to leave?"

"Yeah." Han swept a hand through his dripping hair and glared back at the man. "What do you want, Gaff?"

"Nothing but to let you know that I’m tired of waiting ‘til you’re done."

Before Han could think of a half-plausible excuse for Luke’s presence, the lieutenant brushed past him, invading the room’s buzzing quiet with the noxious taps of his walking stick. When Han followed him around the couch, Luke had slipped his pants on. His eyes lifted to meet Gaff’s scrutiny with a level gaze.

Gaff shook his head. "How come that each time we go after them, Tyrell Corporation pulls a trick that steals our Blade Runner’s heart?"

"Watch your mouth!" Han snapped, but a glance passed between him and Luke that acknowledged the countless things they hadn’t said.

"And you’d better watch yourself," Gaff rejoined with nothing worse than professional disapproval. "You’ve been careless. Someone else could’ve put a watch on you as easily as I did. Someone less friendly than I."

"Really."

"I’m here to protect you," the lieutenant returned and managed easily to make it sound like a threat.

"Don’t tell me Bryant sent you." Han scooped up a discarded towel to rub at his hair. He hadn’t really expected an answer.

While Luke finished dressing, Han pulled one of the crumpled paper slips from his coat’s pocket and wrote down several ‘phone numbers for him. He could smell the street scents that hung around Gaff like the precursors of an insecure reality. With the man’s presence, time had accelerated to a faster beat that made him feel furtive and resentful. It was in the clicks that accompanied Gaff’s restless pacing. In the drips of rainwater tapping on synthetic marble when they walked over to the lift.

Han slowed his stride and knew without looking that Luke’s pace matched his own hesitancy.

From the lift cabin, Gaff looked back at them. "I’ll meet you downstairs, Solo," he said sharply. "In a minute."

"Thanks," Han growled at the closing doors. One minute.

He turned back to Luke and caught his shoulders. "Meet me in Animoid Row tonight," he said. "That’s in the Fourth District. Busy place. Should be inconspicuous enough."

Luke nodded. "I have to attend one of Tyrell’s banquets, but I’ll be there later. And I’ll bring the Nexus-7 files if I can."

When their mouths met again, Han felt the seconds tick off in his blood. He kissed Luke hard. A breathless pressure rose through him and sharpened his awareness to all the facets of scent, taste, texture and the warmth that coiled perfidiously around his heart.

Luke was first to break away. "Han, I―"

"Don’t take any risks," he said roughly, wiping at the trail his damp hair had left on Luke’s temple. "I’ll see you tonight."

* * *

The brown nocturnal gloom started into spurious dawn when Gaff’s spinner took them southward to the mystery zone of Twenty-Eighth Street.

"Drop me off on the corner," Han said to the silent man in the pilot’s seat. "I wanna take a look around, see what kind of turf they’ve picked here."

Gaff aimed a disapproving glare at the altimeter, but complied without further comment. "We’ve set up our watchpost across the road, fifty-first floor," he told Han when the side door folded itself back into steamy air.

"I’ll join you shortly." As he stepped into the street, Han issued a forceful command to his hunter’s instincts. Blank the mind. Scout the cluttered streetscape for clandestine advantages. Through the loose assemblage of parked vehicles and garbage containers, he looked askance at a potential battlefield. If such an ambitious operation had been set up on Twenty-Eighth, there had to be a reason for the choice of locale.

But for all Han could see as he drifted one block down the street, this was a residential area, if any part of the city deserved the name. Maybe the replicants who’d holed up in the mirror department thrived on the sense of human life around them, and all the rainbow shades of decay captured the true colors of their synthetic dreams. Perhaps the fact that leached soil lay buried under the rain-glazed pavement was their essential revelation.

A sudden prickle at the back of his neck stopped Han dead in his tracks, but a sidelong glance revealed only a narrow alley, filled with steam from an exhaust vent. Diffuse light slanted out from a doorway and caught on mobile shimmers within the fogs. Han reached for the reassurance of the gun inside his coat.

Nothing. Maybe the slight jitter in his nerves testified loss of sleep. Unless he was finally losing focus under the impact of reality.

"Hello, Mr. Solo." The voice was low-pitched, yet unmistakably feminine and full of sensual promise. "I’ve been told you wanted to see me." The back lighting made a coppery halo of Zora’s hair as she took a short, calculated step forward. The transparent cape she’d draped across the form-fitting suit enveloped her like a shining plastic cloud. "In fact, I’ve wanted to meet you myself," she added, appraising him with shrewd, restless eyes.

"Flattering." Han hooked a thumb through his belt and wondered uneasily how she’d tracked him. "To think you risked running into a patrol just to satisfy your curiosity..."

"Do I look so helpless to you?" Her throaty laugh rippled into stillness. "I’m curious by nature, and I’ve never come face to face with a Blade Runner." Long, elegant fingers reached for the transparent cowl and drew it protectively over her hair. "Where does that designation come from?" Zora asked. "You use guns after all, not blades."

"I haven’t a clue. Sounds like some drunken poet made it up." Han felt the dank steam wrap around him and settle against his skin. "You’ve got a thing for blades, haven’t you?"

"Just like Luke." A thin smile curled Zora’s mouth. "I find them more... exacting. You’ve watched us together. I think it’s when we fence that he begins to forget what I am."

"Does that matter to you?"

"I’m his fantasy." As she walked towards him, the cape glittered fiercely. "Do you know what it’s like, to have your fantasy come real, in the flesh? It can be terrifying."

_Damn right,_ Han thought. _But you’re nobody’s fantasy, or anybody’s, it’s all the same_.

"Yes, it matters to me," Zora continued with sudden violence. "I need him. His acceptance will vindicate me. Through him, I’ll grow beyond the mere imitation of a superior lifeform."

"Superior lifeform?" Han echoed. "Look around you. Take a good look at the human race and think again. It’s not as if Luke’s a standard example of humanity." He stopped before he could say too much.

" _You’re_ not like him at all," Zora conceded while her green eyes swept down his body and back to his face. "You’re more of a predator. I like that in a man."

An aggressive greed surrounded her as she inched closer, as if one false move could snap a boundless, unfocused hunger out of her. A replicant’s appetite for a deeper taste of life, Han thought. Or was that the mark of Tyrell’s mind?

"If we’d met under different circumstances," Zora said, "if you’d been unaware of my immunity as legal property of Tyrell Corp, what would you do with me?" Her hand rose as if to touch his throat.

"I would’ve given you the test," Han returned in flat tones, ignoring the predictable innuendo.

"And then you would have lasered me. It’s your job to retire runaway replicants." Her voice dropped to a seductive purr. "Do you enjoy it, Mr. Solo? All the power that gives you..."

Han dredged up a derisive smile. "You’ve got the wrong guy, sister. I don’t care, either way."

_Luke would care,_ he thought with a twinge of annoyance, and it delayed his reactions by a crucial split second.

With thoughtless accuracy, Zora’s hand shot out, manicured fingers closing around the butt of his gun. When Han captured her wrist, the muzzle poked his stomach, cool and precise like her touch.

"Do you enjoy playing with fire?" Zora murmured.

"Only when there’s a real chance I might lose." Han tightened his grip. With the right leverage, he could yank the gun free or turn it against her, but he’d never pull the trigger.

A triumphant smile formed lines of contempt around Zora’s mouth. Over her shoulder, Han could see a shadow detach from the bulk of a garbage container.

"Drop that gun," the shadow said in the husky voice of Gaff. He’d pulled the rim of his hat down into his eyes, but his own laser shone clearly in the foggy light. "Get out of here, lady, before reflex gets the better of me."

"Is he always like that?" Zora withdrew her hand with a practiced pout. "You’re intruding, officer. Mr. Solo and I were just beginning to understand each other." Stalking back into the alley, she tossed a smile over her shoulder. "Good-bye, Blade Runner. And don’t forget. He’s mine."

Gaff’s expression was equal parts reproach and sardonic amusement when Han joined him. "She knows a lot. They’ll have you in their pocket if you don’t watch it."

"Not me, pal!" Han snapped, unsettled by Zora’s parting words. "Any news about the fake department?"

"That’s one quiet pond," Gaff returned with a shrug. "And all the goldfish ever do is paddle around in circles."

 

Han couldn’t argue with that assessment once they’d reached the watchpost across the street. In an abandoned loft, bulky surveillance equipment had been set up, telescopic pickups transmitting discolored images to a row of small monitors. Han crouched down in front of them and for some minutes studied the unrevealing activities of uniformed cops, secretaries and men in suits.

"Ever try to give ‘em a call?" he asked when a balding officer conducted another inaudible conversation over an old-fashioned audiphone. "How about tapping into their lines?"

"According to all local providers, those lines have been disconnected since last year," Gaff informed him. "If they’re making any calls, they’ve got to be recirculated within the building."

"But why?" Han pulled up a foldable chair for himself. "Why create such an elaborate pretense that they’re in contact with the world outside―"

"When in fact they operate as a homeostatic unit." Gaff leaned by one of the windows and with the tip of his stick drew random patterns across the water-stained linoleum. "Perhaps they’re rehearsing."

"So that they’ve got all the routines down pat when they take over? That sound like a practicable plan to you?"

"They’re replicants." Gaff pulled the hat deeper into his face. From the look of it, he was getting ready to use the hiatus for a short nap.

The rain had started up again and ran in fine, parallel threads down the large windows. When Han shifted to a more comfortable position in the rickety chair, his coat fell open and something like a thin plastic scrap stuck to his finger. On closer inspection, it shimmered iridescent like a scale, perhaps a souvenir from Zora’s snake. Han flicked it aside and concentrated on the monitor that showed the rooftop entrance, the lift cage guarded by a pair of fish-tailed, marble-breasted nymphs.

"No arrivals or departures so far?" Han asked.

There was no reply. Like a shadow melting into the unplastered wall, Gaff had disappeared. Han rubbed the bridge of his nose. He could hear the silence again. That omnipresent silence conspiring with the decay and the dust, sliding insidious probes into his mind.

Han checked his wristwatch for distraction. Eight thirty-one. And how he was going to get through the empty crawl of the day he didn’t know. He wondered if Tyrell had sent Zora after him or if she’d come of her own accord. Which was just another way to avoid thinking of Luke.

Restless under the pressure of silence, Han got up and paced. A distant vibration rattled the window panes and fined down into the pulse of a rotor as he listened, chopping air like a frenzied heartbeat. Some moments later, a helicopter dropped out of swollen clouds.

When Han rounded the monitor, Gaff had materialized in the doorway like an amateur bogeyman.

"Somebody’s coming to visit," Han said unnecessarily.

On the monitor, the newcomers were furtive silhouettes formed out of pale blue pixels. A woman wrapped from chin to ankle in synthetic fur. A man who ducked his head into the high, padded collar of a crinkled raincoat.

Han swung back to catch Gaff’s reaction. "Is that―?"

"Yes." The lieutenant set two matches down on the monitor, split and plucked into humanoid shapes. "Deckard and Rachael."

"Doesn’t seem to surprise you."

As the couple hurried towards the lift, Han punched in a swift command, and the visual zoomed in on Rachael’s face. She looked changed, her dark hair curling in loose disarray around pale, determined features.

"Wait," Han said when her companion moved towards the darkness of the lift. "You think _Deckard’s_ a replicant too? Is that what it’s all about? His disappearance. The unicorn."

The lift door closed on Deckard’s faintly ironic smile.

"Technically, it’s not impossible to substitute a replicant with memory implants for a living person." For the first time since they’d met, Gaff’s voice had lost its mordant edge.

Han stared at the monitor with the giddy sense of having looked at a mirror too long and hard, until his reflected self took on a spiteful life of its own. "If that’s how it is, everybody could be a plant," he muttered, sliding Gaff a suspicious glance.

The lieutenant showed his teeth. "Not me. Bryant’s convinced that a replicant in my place would be far too human to trust."

"And that’s why he wanted an off-worlder on the job?"

"It has been a year since Deckard left us," Gaff said. "Bryant lives in the past. We used to have five Blade Runner units, but now..." He tapped his stick against the floor, hard enough to topple one of the matchstick figures.

"All right." Han got out of the chair that promised one muscle-cramp after the next. "Whatever Deckard is, it means that Tyrell can’t be behind this operation, doesn’t it?"

"I never thought he was."

"Oh, yeah, you know everything," Han retorted acidly. "My mistake. Sometimes I wonder what you need _me_ for."

Gaff returned a long, considering look as if to insinuate private regrets. In the murky, rain-blurred light, Han couldn’t be sure, and all the lieutenant said was, "Try talking to Bryant. Perhaps he’ll listen."

* * *

Final flickers of daylight had drowned in another downpour when Han entered a ‘phone booth outside Animoid Row. Bryant’s face appeared on the small screen almost at once, cast in sharp relief by the desk lamp. He never seemed to leave his office, and his heavy jowls were stained a deeper red than usual. Perhaps he’d been drinking again.

"Solo," he said, leaning over the vidphone that distorted his features. "About time you called in."

"I’ve spent all day watching over Twenty-Eighth."

"And I had a call from Tyrell himself," the fat man said grouchily. "He wants it put on record that you tried to smooth-talk him into a dirty deal."

A cold warning lashed into Han’s gut. Too easy. He should have known that Tyrell was too slick to swallow a bait that obvious. "Come on," he said, "you know that’s not how it happened. I was hoping he’d drop his defenses."

"Try _subtle_ the next time," Bryant said irascibly, "or start thinking about a new job, got it?"

"Sure, I got that just fine." Han twisted the receiver’s metallic cord between his fingers. It didn’t seem advisable to mention Luke’s plan right now. "There’s something else," he said slowly. "Deckard showed up on Twenty-Eighth this morning."

"Deckard?" The fat man erupted into a bubbling, incongruous laugh. "Deckard’s on a one-way trip to Shangri-la island. Stop playing the monkey, Solo, you’re not funny."

The line dissolved abruptly, and all that showed on the tiny screen was the charge for his call. Han slammed the receiver back into the cradle.

Tyrell hadn’t fallen for his improvised scam, and Zora had gotten wise to him with the speed and efficiency of a professional stalker. Alarm clogged in his stomach, presaging a major blow of bad news.

_Luke,_ Han thought as he left the booth. _What the hell’m I gonna do if something goes wrong?_

Crowds engulfed him as soon as he entered Animoid Row, a sheltered mall brimming with the sounds and scents of artificial wildlife. Between the stalls of animal dealers and engineers, cafés and bars vied for the most exotic decor. From the glitzy tent of a fortune teller rippled repetitive harp strains.

Han passed a Chinese dealer who sat unblinking between piles of cages, as if mesmerized by the light of an electric sun just like the lizards she sold. In every shade of green, turquoise and gold, long tails curled elegantly around dead branches and stones, the lizards bathed themselves in the brilliance of eternal midday. Han waited until he saw one of them blink, a white skin fold sliding up over an emerald eye.

For several hours, he sat hunched over a succession of mocca and beer, perched on a stool beneath glimmering fronds that spilled in liquid chrome from the raised bar. Putting himself on hold between the shifting crowds and the buzz of intoxicated conversations. Watching over the central passage like he’d reached the lower end of deliverance, with the tightness of disbelief spreading into every part of his body. Each time a pale head bobbed among the idle drifts, reflex stiffened his backbone and discounted another possibility.

Stiff after a whole day of pointless waiting, Han left his post to check the infonet for the details of Tyrell’s banquet. All the municipal dignitaries had been invited to trade visions of a prosperous future with Tyrell’s off-world associates on the top level of the Charleston Hotel. An event like this could last well into the night and drain all the reserves of pre-war champagne concentrate.

On the way back to his seat, Han stopped to watch a raccoon in its pen, curled up in stuporous sleep. A live animal, if the price was any indication. He pictured Luke, paraded before Tyrell’s guests, with the drugged, crippled look of the first day back in his eyes, and the image formed with too much ease.

Taking refuge with a decisive time limit, Han ordered another drink and stretched it over the slow count of minutes. The walls wouldn’t come down before midnight. He was good at observing routines like that and drained his glass just as the digits on his watch faded from 11:59 into double zero. On his left, the contest of animated voices with blaring saxophone notes reached a shrill crescendo when a gypsy troupe invaded the mall with the sounds of whistles and tambourines.

Han got up and made his way to the dead end of Animoid Row where half-hour booths promised the diversions of interactive games and digital raunch. One of the plasticoated, stain-repellant terminals gave access to the newswires.

Tyrell’s wonderworld opened its pearly gates almost at once. As he watched the violet petals shudder and disclose the toxic green landscape, animated by the breath of an avaracious god, Han felt snared in an infinite time loop. Lost to the world, Luke and Zora lay side by side in the meadow and gazed into each other’s eyes while the snake slithered through the long grass.

Han let the image burn itself into his retina, but memory spilled through the imperfect barricades of midnight all the same.

The passionate curiosity of Luke’s explorations, the softness of lips brushing the scar on his chin. A slow, drunken surge of desire in his blood, Luke’s mouth on his cock, and the raw strength of feeling when Luke’s arms banded around him. Hope, cutting through all his defenses with terrible speed. Like the onset of another life, somewhere far from here.

Dazed, Han watched the play of sunlight on Luke’s hair. A chimera. A trap he should have recognized.

_And this is the last I’m ever gonna see of him,_ Han thought. Served him right. He’d let Luke down at the Tannhauser Gate, and here on Earth, he’d let him walk off to another clash with impossible odds, using him for his own purposes just like Tyrell had used him. Han felt numb throughout his body. Like too many cells had died a sudden, joint death, and his metabolism was shutting down for the recoup.

Maybe it was the past year hitting home; all the compromises, the half-hearted escapes and afterthoughts. Every single wrong decision glaring in the merciless brilliance of hindsight. At the time, he’d only tried to survive. Stuck to attainable goals and utilitarian principles. And it had taken him all of thirteen months and Luke’s uncompromising clarity to realize how goddamn empty he’d become. _Just once,_ he thought. _Get it right just this one time._

FOLLOW YOUR PERSONAL PATH TO REDEMPTION drifted across the screen, a line thrown to all the lost souls with some straggling bucks left to spend. Nobody in their right minds went up against the brute, monetary power of Tyrell Corporation.

_I don’t care,_ Han thought. By tomorrow morning, he’d be out of work anyway and most likely having a hard time to wrestle enough money for the return fare to Orion from the Department.

When he left the booth, the music had sunken to a reedy whisper, and the first stalls were closing. Out in the rain, Han let his head fall back and watched the drizzle spark in diamond splinters out of starless skies. He couldn’t leave without Luke. Not again.

 

A cab delivered him to the sumptuous portals of the Charleston Hotel. Loosening his holster, Han slid the gun into easy reach and walked around to the service entrance. Befuddled kitchen staff fell back behind a phalanx of scrubbed work-tables when he shoved the Department badge in their faces.

"This is a police investigation," Han said in his best imitation of an official tone. "No need for alarm, just show me to the lift."

He felt slightly ridiculous as he looked around the scratched steel enclosure, but with the first judder of the lift cabin, adrenaline began haunting his bloodstream. The service lift would take him up to the top level restaurant. All through the ride, Han refused to calculate the odds that Tyrell would let him sweep Luke off to an unscheduled interview. Assuming Luke was still with him.

The lift opened to a corridor sprawling in the glow of electric chandeliers. He’d barely set a foot down on the plush carpet when a large hand clamped down on his shoulder and yanked him forward. Straight into the muscled bulk that filled a grey satin suit. An iron fist slammed into Han’s solar plexus before he could get a word out. Between them, Tyrell’s silent heavies jostled him back towards the waiting lift.

"Back off!" Han managed, but it made no difference.

The next jab connected squarely with his jaw. Doubling over, Han grasped the lift’s door before it closed. Dark specks danced furiously across his vision.

"Police," he rasped out. "Get... Tyrell."

When he straightened shakily, he got a first look at the bodyguards who blocked his path like a seven-foot, satin-clad wall compounded from animosity and rottweiler instincts. Their vacant expressions didn’t change when he fumbled for his badge.

"I’m here to talk to Tyrell," Han repeated in a marginally steadier voice.

At the first move he made, one of them grabbed the back of his collar while the other patted him down, confiscating his sidearm with a satisfied grunt. Seizing his elbows, they dragged him two doors down the corridor and into an empty conference room.

The lock clicked with circumstantial malice. Left to catch his breath, Han flopped down on the nearest chair. He didn’t have to wait very long.

A faint spill of ambient music preceded the sound of muted footfalls. Pristine in a dark blue tux and matching bow tie, Tyrell wore a look of righteous indignation as he strode in. Four bodyguards flanked him, the second pair dressed in immaculate purple satin. Perhaps the colors encoded some kind of ranking system.

"Mr. Solo," Tyrell said curtly. "I’m beginning to weary of your visits."

"I’m sure you are..." As he levered out of the chair, Han caught sight of his own reflection in a double-paned window. A lanky, unshaven intruder amid the glitters of the city and the gold-leaf embellishments of the conference room, rumpled coat stained dark across the shoulders by the rain. He made an effort to cover his battered state with false confidence. "...but let me tell you, the Department’s kinda touchy where mugging official investigators is concerned. Why don’t you send your goon squad back to their pen? Oh, and I’d like my gun back, right about now."

"I think not," Tyrell returned icily. "Chief Inspector Bryant asserts that you’ve been removed from the current proceedings. It follows that you cannot be here in any official capacity. I suggest that you spare us further unpleasantness by leaving this establishment instantly."

"Chief Inspector Bryant’s gonna change his mind about my assignment the minute he takes a look at my latest report," Han bluffed. He took a step towards Tyrell and ignored his remote-controlled rottweilers, gearing up to close a threatening circle around him. "The grapevine says you’re experimenting with illegal enhancements for the Nexus-7 brain."

The skin tightened around Tyrell’s eyes, but that was all the reaction he betrayed. "If your source of information happens to be my deranged nephew," he said, "I would advise you to attach no importance to his statement."

"Deranged, huh?" Han echoed scathingly, alternating surges of spite and adrenaline gaining on him. "I think _drugged_ is the word you’re looking for. A simple blood test could clarify the matter."

Tyrell’s eyebrows climbed. "Drugs? That’s a version I hadn’t heard before."

He looked altogether too assured for Han’s comfort. "Memory blockers," Han specified. "The kind of drug that heightens every perception to a point of hypersensitivity." He paused, wondering if the man could be shocked into a revealing response. "The kind of memory repressant that could stimulate an empathic talent as a bonus," he plowed on. "Convenient."

"An interesting concept," Tyrell mused, entirely unruffled. "Unfortunate, however, that such a degree of creative imagination was wasted on a man like you, Mr. Solo. Whatever my nephew may have told you, his medication was prescribed by renowned specialists. You’ll find my lawyers ready to supply his medical reports for the Department, to alleviate your concerns."

"The Department’s going to have him checked over by independent experts." Han kept his hands from balling tight. Rage gathered in his stomach and spilled a reviving frost into his nervous system. "And that’s why I’m here. I’ll take your alleged nephew with me, and I’m not leaving without him."

Tyrell traded oblique glances with his escort. "I’m afraid that won’t be possible," he said tiredly. "Luke _is_ my nephew, and to my eternal grief, a very troubled young man. I regret to tell you that this is by no means the first time his problems have manifested themselves in such a manner. He approaches strangers with the most fantastic stories and at times manages to appear convincingly coherent. Did he tell you that I keep him imprisoned, that I force him to participate in hideous experiments? It wouldn’t be the first time for him to simulate personal affection, perhaps worse―"

"Cut it out!" Han snapped. The rage crawled up his spine and tightened his throat. "Spare me your speeches, ‘cause I’m not gonna fall for any of this! We’ll have Luke examined by our own doctors, period."

"Right now, that’s impossible." Tyrell cocked his head. "Only this afternoon, my nephew went into another acute stage of schizophrenic hallucination. His doctor recommended an immediate transfer to a safe institution and I had to yield to his professional judgment. Luke is no longer in the city."

This time, Han didn’t have any doubts that Tyrell was telling him the truth. He could see those beautiful blue eyes and the thin lines of haunted pressure around Luke’s mouth. It sure wasn’t beyond Tyrell to have him bundled off to some high-security loony-bin in a straitjacket until every recollection of the past week had been leached from his mind.

"You bastard," Han said tonelessly. His stomach rolled. He knew he wasn’t handling this very well and no longer cared. "You goddamn―"

His fist didn’t even graze the dark blue wool. Four humanoid rottweilers fell on him, and within moments, Han found himself on the floor, arms twisted behind his back, the driving weight of a good hundred kilos brought to bear against his lower spine. His head pounded viciously.

"There is no cause for agitation," Tyrell said in aggrieved tones. "Under the circumstances, it doesn’t seem advisable to report you for entertaining illicit relations with my nephew. Legal proceedings could only damage the Department’s reputation and besmirch the good name of Tyrell Corporation. We should try to reach an agreement, Mr. Solo."

Han twisted his head around with an effort. Through a haze of oxygen deprivation, he saw Tyrell’s pale mouth twitch with distaste.

"Mr. Bryant indicated that a financial dilemma prompted you to accept the position as the Department’s bounty hunter. Therefore..."

The pressure against Han’s back eased momentarily. Still fighting for breath, he got his elbows under him and pushed to his knees. Capable hands closed around his shoulders and the scruff of his neck to fix him in that unfavorable position.

From an inner pocket, Tyrell withdrew a paper slip. "The amount stated on this check should suffice to solve your problems."

"Let me up," Han bit out. "I don’t do business on my knees." The room swung through a slow turn around him as he straightened.

"Now," Tyrell continued as if talking to a board of directors, "we have booked a passage to the Orion belt for you on a deep-space liner which departs from Luna One in approximately six hours. In exchange for your cooperation―"

"Forget it." Han worked up an insolent grin. "I’m not for sale."

He lunged again and with a glimmer of satisfaction saw Tyrell stumble back from his hopeless attack before his vision blurred. Unreasoning rage shielded his nerves against the blows it gained him, and he landed a kick into a purple satin crotch when his own legs were swept out under him.

The next thing he felt was the hot sting of a needle jammed into his upper arm. And a greedy darkness swallowed him whole.

 

**Seven**

His stomach clenched in time with the jostling motions, but the twin congas in his temples hammered out an off-beat rhythm. Han felt his head loll, back and forth, back and forth against a padded rest. Over him swayed two miniature suns and fused into a small lamp when he concentrated hard. His eyes burned from the effort. The moment he closed them again, a cold, sickened shakiness washed through him.

"Where―?" he started, but the sound that reached his ears was an inchoate murmur and broke off under the impact of recognition. The smells of sweat and rubber soles, the restrictive seat and the thin whine of jets all indicated the lunar shuttle.

Odd, how the wavering starts of recollection could make things so much worse.

_Luke,_ he thought, the name hanging over the jagged gaps in his memory, weaving connections between the different threads of failure. He recalled the sleeping raccoon and Tyrell standing over him, and his stomach spasmed as if on cue. They were going to ship him off to Orion if he didn’t act fast.

Eyes still screwed shut, Han tried to get his bearings. A cursory survey of his physical functions canceled every ambition beyond staying conscious for the next five minutes. Whatever they’d pumped into his blood had turned his muscles to jelly and promised vertigo at the slightest motion.

A short while later, the jolts and jostles tapered off, and he was hauled to his feet. Han caught a glimpse of grey satin on either side of him. Between them, Tyrell’s bodyguards manhandled him to the shuttle’s exit like excess baggage.

"I can walk," Han mumbled when they yanked him into the gorge of a transfer pipe. Though it wasn’t exactly true, some feeling had returned to his legs, and his sense of up and down steadied gradually.

His ever-silent chaperones set him on his feet in the middle of an oblivious crowd, hustling towards illuminated portals.

Under a cluster of domes extended Luna One, Gateway to the Galaxy in the effusive language of emigration brochures. Han’s vision cleared as they ushered him on to a conveyor belt that cut through the vast departures hall in a straight line. A metal band gleaming under the solar prisms, narrowing towards infinity.

_Like the blade of a knife,_ Han thought. _But I sure as hell ain’t running_. The damnable weakness in his legs turned a staggering walk into a major effort. Bladewalking. Going nowhere.

Beyond the dusty facets of the dome, Han could see the pale ghost of a passenger liner float in orbit. Then a steel frame blocked the view, and they’d reached the first security checkpoint. Dizzy under a sudden blaze of spotlights, Han stumbled off the belt, needing another moment to regain his balance.

"I’ll take it from here," a raspy voice said. "Thanks for your help, gentlemen."

Han knew just one man who could turn every courtesy into a perfect insult. From white brilliance and steel-grey blurs formed Gaff’s face, pale and pock-marked like the surface of the moon itself.

"You too, huh?" Han articulated slowly.

_Shut up,_ spelled the glare Gaff returned before he issued a sharp tirade in street pidgin.

It worked a minor miracle on the satin suits. After a quick exchange of worried glances, they backed off, not without patting the bulges their guns made beneath their jackets.

Han let himself be steered through the gate and into the adjacent hall where the crowds channeled into parallel lines. Losing Tyrell’s bodyguards could only boost his chances of escape.

"I ain’t leaving," he said when Gaff waved him through a door inscribed STAFF ONLY.

"Yes, you are." Some twenty yards down the narrow corridor, Gaff stopped in front of a neutral slide door. "Got your papers?"

Still giddy, Han leaned against the wall to fish for his ID and the Department-issued transfer permit in an inner pocket. But what he pulled out first was a small paper slip. While he stared at the figure on the check, Gaff whistled through his teeth.

"You must’ve bothered Tyrell in a major way if he’s _that_ hot on getting rid of you."

Han floundered only for a moment. "To hell with him," he said thickly, about to crush the check into a ball when Gaff’s bony hand caught his wrist.

"Don’t be more stupid than you absolutely have to be!" the lieutenant hissed. "Take it to the first cashpoint when you stop over on Mars. Now. In there."

Extracting a plastic key card from his pocket, Gaff inserted it into the lock, and the door slid aside to reveal a small office. Through the skylight, a pale rectangle fell across an empty desk, the metallic outline of a control screen, and a slender silhouette poised at the back of the room.

Han gulped a deep breath and held on to it like a last line of defense, because hope kept surprising him, flashing from his mind like lightning over dead, dry hills. Maybe he was finally sliding into hallucinations; the human brain had a way of closing itself around a pleasant madness under duress. But the bitter taste in his mouth was real enough, his tongue dry like rice paper, and he couldn’t get a word out.

"Hey," Luke said softly.

At the first step Han took into the room, space regressed to atoms, and the floor beneath him wobbled. Then it passed quickly, energy collapsing back into matter, and all he felt was the unquestionable pressure of Luke’s arms circling his waist.

"Luke..." he murmured, cupping his face, suddenly aware that his hands had turned bone-cold.

The brush of Luke’s mouth against his own forced down all the retrograde terror. He could finally breathe again. A wave of relief flooded Han’s senses and mingled with a blinding warmth when he pulled Luke into another kiss, sweet and soft and deepening with resurgent energy.

"I’m sorry," Luke said when the kiss ended for a breath, a smile overcoming the troubled look on his face. "I couldn’t get in touch with you."

Han’s brain was still scrambling roughly after a sensible thought when Gaff cleared his throat impatiently.

"Save all that for later, would you?" he snapped. "You’ll have to share a cabin anyway."

"What happened?" For the moment, Han couldn’t take his eyes off Luke.

"They caught me when I tried to locate the files in the computer banks. Tyrell was going to have me transferred to a psychiatric institution."

"I know," Han said huskily.

"But Luke managed to put a call throught to the Department, and I happened to pick up the ‘phone," Gaff added.

When Han turned, the lieutenant spared him a baleful look. "We intercepted the transport and made a quick arrest," he concluded acerbically. "It’s within our rights to detain suspects without formal charges over twenty-four hours. By the time Tyrell’s people get a chance to report, your ship will land on Mars."

"What about you?" Luke asked. "Won’t this get you into trouble?"

"I’m thinking about a transfer to the Department on Twenty-Eighth street," Gaff answered with one of his grainy, hardened smiles. "Deckard might need help with what he’s trying to do. It’s just a matter of recognizing possibilities."

"Listen, Gaff―" Han started, a churning kind of gratitude cutting through every other consideration.

"This, for instance, could be a unicorn," Gaff said as if he hadn’t heard, folding at a scrap of silver paper he’d pulled from his pocket. He held the tiny figure out to Han. "Keep it safe."

Gingerly, Han closed his fingers around it. "Thanks."

Gaff discarded the sentiment with a toss of the head. "You’ve been cleared for instant departure. Straight through to the end of the corridor, then turn right. Can’t miss it. Just do me a favor and don’t come back."

"You got it," Han said, moving for the door.

A minute later, they were walking through a transparent pipe that glistened with the reflections of remote, unfiltered sunlight. Han stole another glance at Luke and thought that in all his life, there’d never been a moment like this, full to bursting with a passion for living. On his right, Earth rose above the craggy moonscape, swathed in blue-white layers of clouds.

He took Luke’s hand and said, "Once we’ve got my ship back, we can go wherever you want."

"So long as you’re with me..." Luke slowed his pace to look back at him. "You believe I’m the lost rebel leader, don’t you? What was his name?"

"Luke," Han said with a lopsided grin. "Luke Skywalker."

And maybe one day, there’d be a new rebellion. Right now, he didn’t care about anything except the glitter of stars beyond the plexiglass, the bright promise in Luke’s eyes, and the breathtaking sense of freedom that swept him.

"Skywalker." Luke paused, listening after the sound. "I like that."

"Suits you too," Han said, a fierce heartbeat kicking his breastbone when Luke’s fingers laced through his own. "Come on now, we’ve got a transport to catch."

* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> First published in: ELUSIVE LOVER \- ALTERNATE VISIONS, 1999.
> 
> For this story, I've drawn on Philip Dick's _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ alongside the _Blade Runner_ movie.


End file.
